Friday, July 11, 2008

Jones Cup Day 2

(Note: Day 1 score and summary updated)

AIA 81-67 Qatar (42-33)

AIA, which consists of NCAA players and lost to Jordan last night, was not intimidated by the more experienced Qatar NT this time. Led by Wellington Smith, the UWV forward who scored 10 points in a 13-4 opening run, AIA had a balanced inside-outside game and cruised to a 81-67 victory.

Benjamin Woodside, who came from North Dakota State, has been the most consistent performer on the team in the first two games, making three of AIA's 12 threes in the game. Woodside had 19 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists.

Laval Lucas-Perry had a fastbreak dunk, a three and a three-point play in the second quarter as AIA led by as many as 14 points.

AIA head coach Dave Bliss said after the game that AIA played better in the game in terms of defense and shot-making. The ad hoc team has a long way to go after a five-day mini training camp before the tournament, Bliss said.

Qatar fell to 1-1 after two games under its new American head coach Kent Davison, a highly respected veteran whose coaching experience spans most levels of basketball in the United States – high school, junior college, NCAA Division I and professional minor leagues.

AIA: Benjamin Woodside 19p+6rb+5a, Laval Lucas-Perry 14p+2s, Dane Brumagin 13p, Wellington Smith 12p
Qatar: Daoud Musa 17p, E.A. Saeed 16p+6rb

Egypt 80-63 Jordan (40-29)

Egypt, the 4th-place team in the 2007 Africa Championship, routed the defending champion Jordan NT 80-63 in a wire-to-wire victory.

210cm center Tarek El-Gannam had 13 of his 15 points in the first half as Egypt broke the game open early in the second quarter. El-Gannam pulled down 6 rebounds.

Jordan was hurt by its 18 turnovers as a team. The defending champion did close the gap to four points but Egypt just couldn't miss tonight, making 67% of its field goals attempts, and pulled away quickly.

Jordan was out of synch all game. Zaid Alkhas, who had 19 points yesterday, scored only one point today. I believe Jordan head coach Mario Palma would not be a happy man when his best player failed to score more than two points in a game.

Kazakhstan 87-71 Korea (37-31)

Kazakhstan handed Korea its second straight defeat by controlling the boards (41-19) and making open shots.

Judging from the first two games, I might be wrong but this Korean University select team is probably the weakest Korean college team I've seen in years.

Kazakhstan: Seva Fadeikin 27p, Anton Ponomarev 14p+9rb
Korea: Park Rae-hun 18p, Heo Il-young 12p, Kim Myung-hoon 11p

Australia U-19 80-67 Taiwan (42-32)

Isn't it weird? Taiwan NT beat Korea University select team yesterday but was routed by a group of Australian high schoolers? Anything happens on the basketball court but it doesn't make sense.

Taiwan NT trailed the entire game and was outplayed by the Emus team inside and out. They couldn't control the board, losing 40-28, due to height disadvantage but they couldn't make shots either. The 13-point loss was definitely embarrassing.

Taiwan's man-to-man defense failed to contain Dellavedova in the first half. A switch to zone defense in the second half did not help much.

Australia: Mitchell Young 17p, Matthew Dellavedova 15p
Taiwan: Yang Chin-min 14p

Standings:
Kazakhstan 2-0
Taiwan 1-1
Qatar 1-1
Jordan 1-1
AIA 1-1
Australia 1-1
Egypt 1-1
Korea 0-2