source: www.inquirer.net
Agence France-Presse


BEIJING -- State media on Monday bemoaned the worst performance in decades by China's men's basketball team, which crashed out of the Asian championships in the first round.

The upset came as a blow to a country with high hopes for the men's team at next year's Beijing Olympics.

Even though China sent a second string team to defend their Asian title in Japan, Titan Sports and other newspapers pointed out that for the first time in 32 years, the 14-time champions failed to reach the event's knock-out stages.

The team looked "dead from the neck up," said the Beijing Times, during the later stages of their match Sunday against the Philippines, which they had to win to stay in contention for a quarter-final place. They lost 79-74.

On Saturday, the side lost to lowly Jordan.

China's chief coach A Dijiang agreed that the team went off the boil at a crucial stage of the defeat to the Philippines.

"Their minds went blank, forgetting everything they knew about tactics and technique," he told the Titan Sports newspaper.

But the coach said the result was only to be expected given the side's youth and inexperience.

Sixteen countries, divided into four groups, are competing in the championships. The winner of the tournament qualifies for a place in the Olympics next year.

As hosts of next year's Summer Games, China automatically get a berth in the basketball tournament and do not have to pre-qualify here.

China's A-team are playing in the Stankovic Cup, an international tournament in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.

The team includes former NBA player Wang Zhizhi and Yi Jianlian, recently chosen in the NBA draft by the Milwaukee Bucks. Houston Rockets star Yao Ming is out injured.

source: www.fiba.com

TOKUSHIMA (FIBA Asia Championship) - Lebanon showed character to overcome the loss of a mainstay at the crucial stage of the game to score a psychologically important 90-68 win against West Asian rivals Qatar in Group I of the Quarterfinal round on Tuesday.

Leading by a none too 'winnable' 64:53 lead, with 01:54 left on the clock, Lebanon mainstay Joe Vogel had to be carried off the court, having suffered a bloody injury in a freak incident. Eyebrows knotted among the Lebanese supporters, for the tall center, in combination with Fadi El-Khatib had played a pivotal role - literally in the basketball sense - in taking his side to the forefront in the encounter.

But El-Khatib came up with his best showing of the championship thus far, to cover up for his prolific colleague's and finished with a game-high of 38 points and nine rebounds.

"We were in a wonderful rhythm when Joe got injured. That's when I thought I have to raise my game," El-Khatib said.

"Of course losing Vogel at that juncture was a concerning factor," said Lebanon coach Dragan Raca. "But Fadi made up for his absence."

"I must say things rather went our way than not," Raca said. "We know beating a team like Qatar is a big boost to our morale. I'm really satisfied with the way our plans worked," the Serbian added.

"I really couldn't understand what went wrong with them," Raca said.

"We would have fixed the problem if we knew what it was," said Qatar coach Edward Andrist. "I think once we went down, we lost focus."

"I accept it was the failure of the coaching staff. But having said that, I must give full marks to them," the American said.

"Our defense was virtually absent in the first half. I thought we were in our elements only in the third quarter. But it was too little against a tough and tactically sound combination," Andrist said.

Both the coaches said there were tougher hurdles ahead.

"It doesn't matter what happened. We have to start planning for tomorrow," both of them spoke in exactly similar words.

"The true test of character of our team will come tomorrow. If we can play at our best," Andrist said.

"We need to prove we can produce these results consistently. Today we have won, but tomorrow is another day. We need to play like this again," Raca said.

Lebanon take on Chinese Taipei, while Qatar match wits with Iran on Wednesday.

Scores

Lebanon 90 (Fadi El-Khatib 38, Joseph Vogel 14) bt Qatar 68 (Yasseen Musa 19, Daoud Daoud 14). Quarterwise: 27-16, 52-30, 70-59.

S Mageshwaran
FIBA Asia

By Ronnie Nathanielsz / PhilBoxing.com

The Philippines began its quest for redemption in their opening game in the battle to top the consolation round of the FIBA Asia Men’s Basketball Championship in Tokushima with a hard-fought overtime victory over a tough Syrian team which the Filipinos had earlier beaten in the four-nation Manila Invitational recently.

Point guard Jimmy Alapag who has carried the nationals on his tiny frame with unbelievable gallantry and an injured Asi Taulava who played through the pain helped jumpstart the road to salvage some pride after their desperate bid to qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics fell apart. The heartbreaking loss to Iran and a fourth quarter collapse that saw the nationals lose to Jordan, winners of the recent Jones Cup, ended the dream but the team refused to give up and engaged the much taller and bigger Syrians in a shootout in Tokushima.

Alapag who led the nationals in scoring with 32 big points got some solid support from big man Taulava who looks small when ranged against the giants of the other teams, put together 15 points and 17 rebounds for a double-double while Danny Seigle who is recovering from an ankle injury played his best game so far to add 15.

But the consolation win was not without its troubles as Mark Caguioa who scored 15 points was pulled out with a hyper-extended shoulder with 2:28 left in regulation and the nationals trailing 84-86. Kelly Williams also had to be benched after seeing action for a mere seven minutes because of a hamstring injury.

It was small consolation for the RP team and the coaching staff led by Chot Reyes when the Syrian coach Samer Jayaly said “your team deserves to be in the final four” which was a follow up to the Jordanian coach’s blasting of the format as “ridiculous” saying “The Group of Death” which bracketed China, Jordan, Iran and the Philippines together deprived two of the four top teams of advancing while favoring several weaker teams.

Reyes said the Syrian game was the “kind of games that are tough to play. I don’t think we are emotionally ready to play this game after the loss. I doubt if our players had much sleep last night. I told the players we signed up to take in the whole experience, both pleasant and unpleasant. Obviously this is the unpleasant part but part of the representation of our national team is to go through it all the way.”

The nationals trailed early because of erratic play in the first half but quickly found their rhythm in the second half to battle the Syrians all the way. With 32 seconds remaining in regulation Alapag scored on a driving layup but the Syrians tied the game on split free throws by Michael Madanly on a foul by Kerby Raymundo with 14 seconds to play and when Dondon Hontiveros missed on a setup triple the game went into overtime. But the Filipinos behind five straight points by Seigle and a crisp 10-0 run ably anchored by Alapag settled the issue and somewhat eased the pain of the nationals.

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