TAIPEI CITY (Chinese Taipei) - Taoyuan Pauian submitted a more consistent outing and cruised to a comfortable 99-80 victory in their BCL Asia-East 2026 rematch with South China Athletic on Thursday night.
The Pilots simply didn't want to come from behind again like in their first encounter last week, soaring to a 23-8 start to seize control of the game before putting together a strong windup toward staying unbeaten.
Supported by a lively home crowd in attendance at the University of Taipei Tianmu Gymnasium, the defending P. League+ champions netted their third win in as many games and thus remained on top of Group B.
"Today, we already know better the players that we're playing against," reflected Coach Iurgi Caminos, when asked about the difference was from their first game versus SCAA at the Southorn Stadium in Hong Kong, China.
"For them it's completely different when you play at home ... but we're more focused, knowing a little bit better on what we want to do, that's why we executed well in the beginning," the Spanish bench tactician added.
Like in their massive rout of New Taipei the last time out, Taoyuan Pauian leaned on another balanced attack in the conquest, with Will Artino leading the way with 19 points and 14 rebounds for an efficiency of 28.
Also registering the same EFF rate was fellow big man Alec Brown behind another all-around performance to the tune of 16 points, spiked by a pair of triples, 11 rebounds, 5 assists, and all 4 of the team's blocked shots.
Setric Millner, Jr. came through with 16 points as well, together with 5 rebounds, 4 assists, and 1 steal, while main man Justin Lu chipped in 15 as all but 2 players contributed at least 3 points in the wire-to-wire win.
"They came out and kinda punched us in the mouth. So we knew that they're gonna come out ready to go and probably wanted some revenge, so we had to stay ready, stay focused at the start," Artino offered.
The Pilots (3-0) will look to keep their record intact when they host the reigning league champions Chinggis Broncos (1-0) of Mongolia on April 21, Tuesday, at 19:00 local time in a rematch of last year's Final.
Glen Yang finished with 20 points for South China, who fell to their second loss in a row and dropped to 1-3 as they badly missed the services of Dominic Gilbert, who's out reportedly due to a hand injury.
Rodrigue Andela supplied 18 points and 14 rebounds. Kyvon Davenport made 15 points and 6 rebounds as the tandem carried much of the reinforcement duties for the night. Choi Kwan Tsai added 13 in the defeat.
South China will look to bounce back - and repeat - against the 0-2 Kings on Saturday in the same venue.
FIBA