FIBA Asia – Day 4 Round-Up: 20th FIBA Asia Champions Cup

JAKARTA (FIBA Asia Champions Cup) - Indonesian champions Satria Muda, Young Challengers of India and Smart Gilas of Philippines induced an air of refreshing change to the monotony of results scoring upset, but well deserving, wins over their more fancied opponents on the fourth day of the 20th FIBA Asia Champions Cup on Friday.

Young Challengers brought the curtain down on a day when only Mahram survived the carnage of fancied teams with an 82-76 win over last edition’s bronze medalists Al Wasl of UAE.

Smart Gilas played with a lot of speed and showed a lot of spunk in beating Lebanese league champions Al Riyadi Beirut 91-86 in Group A.

Interestingly, the coaches of both Smart Gilas and Young Challengers – incidentally both Serbians – Toroman Rajkov and Aleksandar Bucan had both asserted on the eve of the championship that their teams were here to gain more experience and exposure.

Both the teams exceeded their coach’s expectations by booking a place in the quarterfinals.

Satria rode on birthday boy Nakiea Miller’s stupendous show under the board to beat Al Arabi of Qatar 84-77 to improve their position in Group B.

Smart Gilas are now 2-1 in Group A and take on Kuwaiti league winners Al Qadsia on Saturday. Riyadi wound up their preliminary round engagements 2-2.

Qadsia, were steamrolled by WABA champions Mahram 110-80 in the other Group A game on Saturday. Mahram, having won all their three games now take on Korea’s Sangmoo.

Young Challengers scored the final four points against an undefended goal, with Wasl throwing in the towel protesting against a 24-second violation non-ruling.

“It would have mattered if we were trailing and won the game just because of those two baskets. Since we were already leading and the rivals protested for no mistake of ours, I will accept the win gleefully,” said Young Challengers coach Aleksandar Bucan.

Punjab Police center Jagdeep Singh led the Young Challengers’ charge with 22 points and eight rebounds.

“I think we got our combination going rather well especially in the second and third quarters,” Jagdeep said.

“We basically came here to gain some experience for the FIBA Asia championship. This win is a big bonus for us,” Bucan said.

“It showed that the boys have the ability to translate their hard work in training into game situations,” the Serbian added.

“If this win takes us into the quarterfinals, we will be much richer by experience,” Bucan said.

The win left Young Challengers tied with Satria Muda with a 1-2 record from three outings. The two clash on Saturday.

American Chukwunike Okusa led the scoring for the game with 29 points and 15 rebounds to lead Wasl’s challenge.

Wasl, who wound up their four games in preliminary round with a 1-3 record are left hoping Young Challengers beat Satria to make the last eight grade.

Satria had their hero in Nakiea Miller.

The American who turned 31 today, accounted for 23 points alright, but more importantly – as acclaimed by the two rival coaches – made the difference in the game with his 21 rebound collections. That 14 of them came in defense spoke for his contribution in checking the Arabi scoring.

“My man here stood really tall under the board,” Arabi coach David Ingham said.

“Happy birthday to him!”

“I’m glad we picked Miller from the list of choice we had,” said Satria coach Fictor Roring.

Rashad Powell also returned a double-double with 20 points and 12 boards.

“I think we beat them in free-throws and rebounds,” Miller said.

Satria were 12/14 as against Arabi’s 11/24 in free throws.

The hosts won the battle of boards 53-45.

Smart Gilas seized the initiative with a 9-0 run early in the game – for a 17-6 lead – and kept growing in confidence and scoring as the game progressed.

CJ Giles scored eight of his 20 points in the final quarter, after his return from an injury scare in the third quarter. Giles also collected 11 boards for the game.

“Not bad at all for a team that came to gain experience,” chuckled Rajkov.

“It’s indeed a great result for us. Yesterday (against Mahram), we showed we had the toughness to play big teams and today we translated that into a winning result. It certainly is very positive step ahead for us,” said Rajkov.

Christian Charles returned to the Riyadi starting five with a double-double (21 points and 12 boards).

Fellow American Nate Johnson, who was not fielded on Thursday top scored the game with 43 points. But there was hardly any support from the rest.

“I think this was their win more than our loss,” said Riyadi coach Fouad Abouchakra.

“They came hard at us and dictated the pace right from the beginning and we fell into their trap,” he added.

Mahram led the Qadsia throughout and stepped up the gas with a 16-3 run in the final three minutes of the second quarter.

Jackson Vroman, on loan from Saba Mehr for this championship, was once again in roaring form with 32 points, sharing the scoring honors for the game with Samad Nikkah.

Hamed Afagh and Mahdi Kamrani, Samad’s teammates on the Iranian National Team at the Beijing Olympics last year accounted for 11 points apiece.

“It was a good game for us, but I think we can do a lot better in our defense,” Vroman said in a sign of a team that’s looking to improve all the time.

“I think we are giving away too many points in the first quarter. We can do a lot better in our transition defense and also improve our defensive rebounds,” the 27-year-old former New Orleans Hornets forward said.

Qadsia coach Jordancho Davitkov, “Against such a strong team, it was a matter of time when they would pull away.”

“We managed to remain in contention for about 17 minutes, which is a positive I’ll take from this game. Especially because we are here without three of our main players,” the Macedonian former Yugoslav player said.

Scores

Group A

Smart Gilas 91 (Mark Barocca 28, CJ Giles 20, Dylan Ababou 17) bt Al Riyadi Beirut 86 (Nate Johnson 43, Christian Charles 21). Quarterwise scores: 26-15, 49-34, 65-65.

Mahram 120 (Jackson Vroman 32, Samad Nikkah 32, Priest Lauderdale 12, Hamed Afagh 11, Mahdi Kamrani 11) bt Al Qadsia 80 (Abdulaziz Mohammad 17, Joel Box 14). Quarterwise Scores: 33-27, 58-42, 90-58.

Group B

Satria Muda 84 (Rony Gunawan 24, Nakiea Miller 23, Rashad Powell 20) bt Al Arabi 77 (Maurice Hargrow 21, Erfan Saeed 15, Ali Ali 15, Joshua Jones 13). Quarterwise Scores: 25-23, 46-41, 59-61.

Young Challengers 82 (Jagdeep Singh 22, Talwinderjit Singh 14, Vishesh Bhriguvanshi 12) bt Al Wasl 76 (Chukwunike Okusa 29, Herve Lamizana 16).

S Mageshwaran
FIBA Asia