Sunday, September 28, 2008

Guanhu Cup interrupted by super typhoon

The remaining games of the 2008 Guanhu Cup have been cancelled because of a super typhoon which is hitting Taiwan, game organizers said Saturday. Semifinal games and the the championship game will not be played.

Yulon, Taiwan Beer, Singapore Slingers and Korea's Kyunghee University advanced to the semifinal Saturday after the quarterfinal round. But that was as far as the competition went as Taiwan braced for Typhoon Jangmi, the fourth and the most powerful typhoon hitting the country this summer.

The cancellation of the games was inevitable as Typhoon Jangmi made its landfall in Taiwan's eastern coast Sunday afternoon. Hualien, where Guanhu Cup is being played, is in eastern Taiwan.

Sept. 27 Quarterfinal results:

Yulon 82-74 Dacin
Taiwan Beer 99-95 dmedia
Slingers 97-84 Phoenix
Kyunghee Univ. 95-90 Pure Youth

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Guanhu Cup: Two teams eliminated, quarterfinals begin

Taiwan Mobile and Taiwan University Select have been eliminated from the 10-team 2008 Guanhu Cup after three days of preliminary games. Quarterfinals begin today.

Sept. 26
Kyunghee 86-77 Phoenix
dmedia 84-74 Taiwan Mobile
Yulon 98-85 Slingers
TB 86-77 Dacin

Quarterfinal matchups:
Slingers vs. Phoenix
Yulon vs. Dacin
Kyunghee vs. PY
TB vs. dmedia

Guanhu Cup photos (source: Apple Daily)

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Sun Ming Ming of Phoenix stood above all the rest.

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Lin Chih-chieh, Taiwan Beer.

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Kao Tien-chi, dmedia.

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Chen Hsin-an, who became a father this summer, returned to the court.

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Sun Ming Ming of Phoenix.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Guanhu Cup results

Group A: Yulon, dmedia, Taiwan Mobile, Slingers
Group B: Taiwan Beer, Pure Youth, Dacin
Group C: Taiwan University Select, Kyunghee Univ., Phoenix

Sept. 24
Kyunghee 62-48 TUS
PY 94-76 Dacin
Slingers 92-84 TM
Yulon 110-82 dmedia

Sept. 25
Phoenix 110-67 TUS
Slingers 101-89 dmedia
Yulon 81-60 TM
TB 86-81 PY

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

2008 Guanhu Cup Invitational tips off today

123 2008 Guanhu Cup Invitational, which is alos known as Hualien Probation Cup, tips off today as ten teams from Taiwan and overseas are scheduled to participate in the five-day event that is entering its sixth year.

Venue: Huanlien County Gymnasium

Participating Teams:
Taiwan University Selects
Dacin Tigers, Taiwan (SBL) http://www.dacintigers.com.tw/
Yulon Dinos, Taiwan (SBL) http://www.yulon.com.tw/
Taiwan Beer, Taiwan (SBL) http://sbl.mytaiwanbeer.com.tw/
Pure Youth, Taiwan (SBL)
dmedia Numen, Taiwan (SBL) http://www.dmedia-numen.com.tw/
Taiwan Mobile Leopards, Taiwan (SBL) http://www.taiwandabasketball.com|
Hamamatsu Higashimikawa Phoenix, Japan (BJ League) http://bj-phoenix.com/
Kyung Hee University, Korea http://www.kyunghee.edu/
Singapore Slingers http://singaporeslingers.com/

2008 Guanhu Cup Invitational schedule

Sept. 24 (Wed.)
1400 TUS vs. Kyunghee (@Yuli Junior High School)
1540 Taiwan Mobile vs. Slingers
1720 Yulon vs. dmedia
1900 Dacin vs. Pure Youth

Sept. 25 (Thu.)
1400 Phoenix vs. TUS
1540 Slingers vs. dmedia
1720 Taiwan Mobile vs. Yulon
1900 Pure Youth vs. Taiwan Beer

Sept. 26 (Fri.)
1400 Kyunghee vs. Phoenix
1540 dmedia vs. Taiwan Mobile
1720 Yulon vs. Slingers
1900 Opening Ceremony
1930 Dacin vs. Taiwan Beer

Sept. 27 (Sat.)
1000 Quarterfinal 1
1140 Quarterfinal 2
1320 Quarterfinal 3 (Live broadcast, Videoland)
1500 Quarterfinal 4 (Live broadcast, Videoland)

Sept. 28 (Sun.)
1000 Semifinal 1
1140 Semifinal 2
1420 Bronze medal game (Live broadcast, Videoland)
1600 Championship game (Live broadcast, Videoland)
1740 Closing Ceremony

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Taiwan Mobile adds seven players

朱振維黃宇凡鄭志龍歐陽進恆顏振弘鍾秀鼐(左至右)01

Head coach Cheng Chih-lung and the newcomers. (source: Taiwan Mobile)

Taiwan Mobile, which finished for sixth place last season in the SBL, signed seven players, including German-Taiwanese center Jufan Geiger, for the upcoming season.

The Clouded Leopards yesterday introduced the newcomers with Geiger drawing the most attention. Geiger (205cm, 105kg), 27, came from Germany. His mother is a Taiwanese but he has to play as an import before receiving a Taiwanese passport -- if he wants to have one.

Geiger played for BBL's SV Tuebingen in 2003-04, Walter Tigers Tuebingen from 2004-2006, Kirchheim Knights of the ProA League in 2006-2007 before playing for TV Konstanz, averaging 11.8 points with the team.

Taiwan Mobile said it offered a position in the IT section for Geiger, a bioinformation major in Germany, to extend his non-basketball professional career.

I'm happy to know that Jufan finally find his way in Taiwan. I first got in touch with him about an year ago through a German reporter and exchanged a couple emails.

Ouyang Ching-heng, who enjoyed a breakout season last year -- 19.4 points and 4 rebounds per game -- with the dmedia Numen, signed with Taiwan Mobile.

Joining Ouyang will be 37-year-old sharp shooter Lo Hsing-liang, who averaged 6.2 points (39.5% 3PT) per game last season and helped Taiwan Beer to its second straight SBL title. TM wil count on Lo's experience and crunch shooting a lot.

194cm forward Chung Hsiu-nai, the second overall pick in the SBL Draft, will try to learn in a higher level of basketball and live up to his father's name. Chung's father, Chung Chih-mung, was an accomplished basketball coach who has coached Tera Mars in the CBA and Videoland Hunters in the SBL.

197cm Yen Chen-hung, 187cm forward Chu Chen-wei and Fang Yung-hsi, who played last season with Yulon, also signed with Taiwan Mobile.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Taiwan ninth place in Asian Junior Men

chinese_taipei

Sorry for late. I have been busy lately. Anyway, Taiwan Junior Men finished for the all-time worst ninth place in the Asian U-18 Championship which took place in Tehran, Iran.

While it's true that the results, which was the first time in history that Taiwan was out of the final eight, had a lot to do with the epic battle and a loss to the Philippines in two overtimes in the preliminary round, it was also undeniable that Taiwan's high school basketball has been down a bit these years.

After falling out of the quarterfinal round, Taiwan beat Saudi Arabia, 119-92, and India, 102-89, in the classification games before a 102-89 win over Jordan to finish for the ninth place.

Lee Ming-hui, the leading scorer on the team, had 26 points in the Jordan game while Chang Po-wei scored 19 and Lin Li-jen had 16 points.

Final ranking of the 2008 Asian U-18 Men's Championship:

1. Iran
2. Kazakhstan
3. Syria
4. Japan
5. China
6. Korea
7. Philippines
8. Lebanon
9. Taiwan
10. Jordan
11. Saudi Arabia
12. Hong Kong
13. India
14. UAE
15. Malaysia

Related links:
Wikipedia – FIBA Asia Under-18 Championship
FIBA Asia - Roster and game stats download (PDF)

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Taiwan to host Asian Women's Championship after 36 years

FIBA_Asia CTBA confirmed Tuesday that Taiwan has won the bid to host the 23rd Asian Women's Basketball Championship next year, the third time in history and the first time in 36 years that Taiwan had won the right to host the event.

Taiwan lastly hosted the most prestigious event in 1972 and won silver that year. In 1968, Taiwan hosted the Asian Women's Championship for the first time and finished with 4th place in the competition.

Due to political conflict with China, Taiwan's FIBA membership was suspended in 1974 and was not re-activated until 1986, which means that Taiwan was unable to participate in any FIBA-sanctioned competition for 12 years.

In 2002, Taiwan finally won the bid to host the Asian Junior Women Basketball Championship, which was held in Taipei.

CTBA also said that the FIBA Asia executive committee has reached a decision that China will host the next Asian Men's Basketball Championship with host city pending.