Day 2 Level 1 Round-Up - China down Japan; Taipei, Korea win

CHENNAI (23rd FIBA Asia Women Championship) - Finalists of last edition – Korea and China took somewhat contrasting paths towards posting their second successive wins in Level I competition even as Chinese Taipei handed hosts India yet another bruising defeat on Friday.

Last edition’s silver medalists China shrugged off some early hiccups to beat last edition’s bronze medalists Japan 75-58, but defending champions Korea had no trouble whatsoever in beating Thailand 116-45.

Chinese Taipei, like China, also took their time to settle down, before beating India 84-61.

Taipei and Japan are locked 1-1. Thailand and India have lost both their outings.

A 14-4 dominance in the latter part of the third quarter helped China to break open the confident Japanese.

Japan managed to keep the contest even keeled till the Chen Nan-Bian Lan-Miao Lijie trio took charge of the proceedings.

The star Chinese Olympian trio ran both sides of the floor hard and transformed a 40-42 deficit to a 56-46 advantage to take the game away from their rivals.

“They really caught us by surprise with their moves,” conceded Japan coach Fumikazu Nakagawa.

Miao scored five points, including a three-point play and effected one assist; Nan and Bian scored twice each from the paint, collected two defensive rebounds each and effected 1 assist apiece as China raced ahead.

“I think that was the period things began to fall in place the way we wanted,” said China coach Sun Fengwu.

Nan top scored the game with 18 points, in a 60% (9/15) field record and collected a team-high eight rebounds as China out-rebounded Japan 37-29.

Miao had 14 points and five defensive rebounds and Bian Lan 13 points and seven boards.

Noriko Koiso topped the scoring for Japan with 17 points.

Taipei found the tempo too slow in the initial minutes.

“We did take a little too long to get our tempo going. And fortunately it happened sooner than later,” Taipei coach Lin Hung Ling-Yao.

In that time, Geethu Anna Jose did all the scoring after Prashanti Singh had opened the scoring for the game as India moved ahead 12-5.

Jose went on to account for more than half her team’s score – a tournament-high 34 points – but her effort was rather lonely, and therefore went in a losing cause.

Jose had a fantastic 79 % (11/14) record in field attempts.

Lan Jui-yu sparked off the Taipei fightback reeling in nine of her 15 points for the game in the first quarter, capping the effort a score-levelling attempt to close the first ten minutes 16-16..

Chang Shih-chieh and Li Wan-ting, meanwhile had found their bearings and Taipei didn’t have to worry too much.

Chang Shih-chieh scored eight of her 15 points and Li Wan-ting nine of her 14 for the game in the second quarter as Taipei left nothing to chance.

Kim Kwe-ryong led the all-round Korean barrage with 19 points, in a 7/9 field record. The 30-year-old veteran also collected six rebounds.

Coach Lim Dal Shik fielded all his players – for at least nine minutes each – and all of them scored, seven of them in double figures.

Lee Min-sun effected a tournament-high 10 assists – the first time any player has recorded double-digits in this department.

Charothai Suksomwong was the highest scorer for Thailand with 12 points.

S Mageshwaran
FIBA Asia