Monday, July 02, 2007

Jones Cup Day 1


Opening ceremony


Lin Chih-jay

--Taiwan 90-77 Japan
Led by SBL regular season and finals MVP Lin Chih-jay, Taiwan shook off a first-half scoring drought and turned the game around in the second half for a 90-77 win over Japan's WUG NT.

Lin made six threes in the game, including five in the second half to open up the game after a first-half that saw the home team struggling with its offense. Taiwan shot a miserable 1-of-15 behind the 3-PT line in the first 20 minutes and trailed 39-33 at the half.

TWN: Lin Chih-jay 20p, Tsun Wen-din 17p+9rb, Wu Dai-hao 10p+12rb
JAP: Yusuke Okada 23p+7rb, Shohei Kikuchi 18p, Yosuke Machida 15p

-- Jordan 63-61 Kazakhstan
Jordan almost squandered a 12-poin lead but prevailed on a backdoor basket by Ayman Idais with 2.5 seconds to go and defeated Kazakhstan 63-61.

JOR: Rashiem Wright 25p, Zaid Abbaas 12p
KAZ: Mikhail Yevstigneyev 17p, Dmitriy Korovnikov 16p, Anton Ponomarev 8p

-- Lebanon 80-71 Iran
El Cheikh Fadi El Khatib scored 35 points on 10-of-17 shooting and single-handedly led Lebanon to the victory. Lebanese center Joseph Vogel sat out the game as he lost his luggage during a flight transfer. Vogel is expected to play tomorrow

LEB: El Cheikh Fadi El Khatib 35p, Omar El Turk 17p, Rony Fahed 11p
IRA: Aidin Nikkhah Bahrami 21p, Hamed Ehadadi 16p+10rb

-- South Korea 70-69 Qatar
South Korea took advantage of Ali Turki Ali's missed free-throw with less than 10 seconds left when Korea trailed 69-68. Kim Min-soo tipped in Yang Dong-guen's missed layup as the buzzer sounded to give South Korea the inspiring win.

South Korea twice trailed by 10 points in the second half. Star forward Kim Joo-sung is expected to sit out the entire tournament due to injury. Former NBA player Ha Seung-jin played only 16 minutes due to knee injury.

KOR: Kim Seung-hyun 15p, Lee Kyu-sup 15p, Kim Dong-woo 12p, Kim Min-soo 8p+10rb
QAT: Erfan Ali Saeed 25p, Mohammed Seleem Abdulla 14p

-- Philippines 72-67 AIA
Jimmy Alapag shot a perfect 5-of-5 from the field en route to 19 points and Mark Caguioa scored 9 consecutive points for the Philippines down the stretch as Philippines took advantage of its expereince and upset the defending champion Athletes in Action, which mostly consists of U.S. college players,72-67.

PHI: Jimmy Alapag 19p (5-5 FG, 6-7 FT), Mark Caguioa 14p, Michael Pennissi 11p, Donaldo Hontiveros 11p
AIA: Todd Hendly 11p, Zack Gibson 11p, Tyler Wilkerson 10p