Led by Chang tsun-hsien's 20 points, Taiwan U-18 men's NT routed Singapore 78-41 Sunday and wrapped up the preliminaries in the Asian U-18 Men's Championship, which is taking place in Urumqi, China, with its third straight easy wins. Taiwan won Group A and will face Kuwait in the second round tonight.
Eight second-round qualifiers are bracketed into two groups:
Group I - A1 Taiwan, B2 Kazakhstan, C1 China, D2 Kuwait
Group II - A2 Iran, B1 Korea, C2 Japan, D1 Lebanon
Group II are regarded as the tougher group as it was packed with the defending champ Iran, Korea -- runner-up two years ago, and Lebanon, which ranked third in 2004.
Lebanon Junior is led by Paul Coughter, Lebanon's head coach in the World Men's Championship in Japan.