Sunday, December 11, 2005

Close games highlight SBL opening day

Both games ended in dramatic fashion to highlight the opening day of 2005-06 SBL season as defending champion Yulon edged Dacin 88-87 and Bank of Taiwan shocked ETSN with a 76-69 win.

Last season's Finals MVP Tsun Wen-din had 22 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 blocks and led Yulon to a 7-game winning streak vs. Dacin. Tsun outplayed his NT teammate Tien Lei, who had 18 points, 12 rebounds and 4 steals and completed a three-point play to cut the deficit to one in the last minute but fouled out afterwards.

Dacin rookie Su Yi-chieh replaced injured Wang Chih-chun as the starting point guard and did not disappoint, scoring 10 points and dishing out 3 assists in his SBL debut. Su's high-arching running layup made the score 88-87 with 18.8 seconds left, but Dacin failed to score in the last possession.

Chou Shih-yuan had 16 points and 7 rebounds for Yulon, who also received 16 points from Lee Hsueh-lin. Veteran Chou Hong-yu had 12 points, 6 boards and 5 assists.

Chen Shun-hsiang pulled down a key offensive rebound and put back a deciding bucket to help BOT upset his former team ETSN in the second game of the night. Chen, who left ETSN and signed with BOT, scored 12 points. But it was Chien Ming-fu's three-pointer iced the game for BOT, who failed to reach playoffs in the last two seasons.

BOT's defense limited ETSN top scorer Yang Yu-min to 9 points on 2-of-11 shooting and 9 turnovers. Lin Chun-feng led BOT scorers with 17 points and 7 rebounds.

Wu Jun-hsiung had 19 points and 9 rebounds for ETSN. Wu Jia-long had 14 points, followed by Hsiao Yuan-chan's 11 points and 13 rebounds.