Iran - Iran's young basketball players regain asian crown
Iran clinched the title at the FIBA Asia U18 Championship for Men which was held in the capital Tehran. The hosts regained the crown in style, mauling a hapless Kazakhstan 95-76 in front of more than a capacity crowd at the Azadi Stadium court on Friday. Iran had won the title previously in the 2004 edition at Bangalore. The Iranian squad also won the silver medal in 2002. Kazakhstan were playing their maiden final.
From english.farsnews.com
Download source here
Iran clinched the title at the FIBA Asia U18 Championship for Men which was held in the capital Tehran.
The hosts regained the crown in style, mauling a hapless Kazakhstan 95-76 in front of more than a capacity crowd at the Azadi Stadium court on Friday.
Iran had won the title previously in the 2004 edition at Bangalore. The Iranian squad also won the silver medal in 2002. Kazakhstan were playing their maiden final.
Both Iran and Kazakhstan had already qualified for the FIBA U19 World Championship for Men in New Zealand next year.
Kazakhstan managed to remain abreast of the hosts till the closing moments of the first quarter, but back-to-back baskets from Mehdi Shirjang and Ramin Honarmand - the latter a colossal attempt from the center-line - took Iran 25-19 ahead at the end of the first quarter.
Shirjang went on to sink four more three-pointers in five attempts in the second quarter as Iran raced away 35-24 midway through the quarter, which they consolidated to 48-31 before Farbod Farman closed the quarter with a dunk.
Iran led 59-37 ahead going into the changing rooms and never looked back.
Shirjang finished with a game-high 24 points, off eight three-pointers in 12 attempts.
Farman was a darling of the crowd with five dunks for his 18 points.
Mohammed Hasanzadeh had only 10 points, but pulled down a staggering 12 rebounds to stand tall in Iran defense.
Iran won the battle of boards 44-38.
"The boys rose to the occasion," Raicevic said.
"There are so many things that can go wrong in a championship game. I'm glad nothing of that sort happened to us," he said.
Talking about the game, Raicevic said, "Our shooting came good. Especially our three-pointers. That eased the pressure on the inside play."
Iran had a 14/28 (50%) success rate from behind the arc as compared to Kazakhstan's 4/16 (25%).
That scoring advantage compensated for a below par shooting otherwise. Kazakhstan shot 23/43 (53%) in two-pointers as against Iran's 24/58 (41%).
Alexander Tyutyunik, Anton Arsenyev and Artyom Skornyakov shared the scoring honors for Kazakhstan with 18 points each. Skornyakov also collected 10 boards.
"They were on a roll," said Kazakhstan coach Vadim Buryakov.
"Also I think the boys crumbled under the pressure of the crowd," he added.
"Overall I am satisfied with the silver medal. We came here for a top-3 finish. In that way we have done better than our expectations," Buryakov added.
"Now our preparations start for the World Championship," he said.
Syria managed to take the third place by gaining a 93-86 victory over Japan on the same day.
The three top-ranked teams - Iran, Kazakhstan and Syria - will attend the 2009 FIBA World Junior Men's Championships in New Zealand.
Sixteen teams took part in the 20th Edition of the FIBA Asia Junior Championship, which ran from August 28 through September 5.
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8706161318