Saturday, October 18, 2008

Iran wins Asian University Basketball Championship

Amir Amini had 20 points, 6 assists and four steals and M. Akbaribisheh had 16 points and four steals as Iran University Select beat Taiwan University Select 78-71 in the championship game of the 2008 Asian University Men's Basketball Championship (AUB) on Oct. 16.

Taiwan finished as runner-up for the second time. It lost to Korea two years ago in the inaugural AUB.

Korea's Hanyang University edged Notre Dame University of Lebanon 74-72 in the bronze medal game.

The home boys failed to cut down on their turnovers once again after squandering a 23-point lead in a upset loss to Iranians in the preliminary round. Taiwan committed 22 turnovers in the final game as Iran pulled off a 15-4 run in the final three minutes for the victory.

Wu Tai-hao had 13 points and 11 rebounds and Lin Ching-pang had 11 points and 8 boards.

When Taiwan meets Korea on the basketball court, you expect something interesting to happen, which was the case in the cross-over semifinal. The game was stopped three times because of confrontation, protests and near-brawls. It ended with six disqualifications -- four for Taiwan and two for Korea -- and 59 foul calls.

Taiwan beat Hanyang Univ. 88-80 thanks to Chen Shun-hsiang's 34 points and the 26 for 30 free-throw shooting as a team. Wu Tai-hao, who had a techincal and fouled out of the game, had 14 points, 7 rebounds and three blocks.

Guangdong University of Technology, which produced current New Jersey Nets forward Yi Jianlian, and City University of Hong Kong failed to make the semifinals.

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Lin Ching-pang.

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Wu Tai-hao scored over Iranian players.

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Wu Tai-hao dunked on a Guangdong University of Technology defender.

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Chen Shun-shiang scored 34 in the championship game.

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Chaotic scene in the Taiwan-Korea game.

(Photo source: UDN.com, AUB official web site)

Saturday, October 11, 2008

2008-09 HBL season set to begin

HBL 2008-09 high school basketball season is set to begin next Monday with 22 men's teams and 13 women's teams battling for the bragging rights of Taiwan high school ball. All eyes will be on Nanshan High School and Haishan High School, the defending men's and women's champions.

"Shan" means "mountain" in Chinese. In the past years, Nanshan and Haishan have become two mountains that are difficult for their opponents to conquer, with Haishan winning three straight women's finals and Nanshan taking home two men's titles.

The new season will start with the Northern Division preliminaries, which will be played in Nanhu High School in Taipei from Oct. 13-19. Eleven of 15 teams in the division advance to the second round. Five of the seven teams in the Southern Division advance to the second round after a preliminiary round in Fengshan Vocational High School from Oct. 15-18 in southern Taiwan.

The 16-team men's second round will start Dec. 25 in Banciao, Taipei. Women's preliminary round will start on the same day and conclude on the final day of the year. Organizers decided to push back the women's schedule because Taiwan will be sending its national team to the Asian U-18 Women's Championship in Indonesia in Novermeber.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Asian University Men's Championship to tip-off in Taipei

AUB2008 The second Asian University Men's Basketball Championship will be played in Taiwan from Oct. 11-16 2008 as six teams from Taiwan, China, Korea, Lebanon, Iran and Hong Kong will vie for the ultimate crown of Asian collegiate basketball.

According to the information from the official web site, both Taiwan and Iran fielded university select teams for the competition. City University of Hong Kong will represent Hong Kong while Hanyang University represents Korea. China sent Guangdong University of Technology to the event. And if I'm not mistaken, Notre Dame University - Louaize will represent Lebanon.

All games will be played at the stadium of the Chinese Culture University in Yangmingshan, Taipei.

Korea won the title in the first edition of AUB in 2006.

The competition was hosted by Chinese Taipei University Sports Federation (CTUSF) and Taipei City Government and organized by Chinese Taipei Basketball Association (CTBA) and the CTUSF basketball committee under the auspices of Asian University Sports Federation (AUSF).

AUSF press release:

2nd Asian University Men's Basketball Championship: Update 3
2008-09-18

For the upcoming 2nd Asian University Men`s Basketball Championship to held from 11th to 16th Oct. 2008, six teams from China, Hong Kong, Iran, Korea, Lebanon and the host Chinese Taipei finally confirmed the participation in it. Therefore, the two-group competition system will not be used. The competition system will comprise of two stages: Preliminary Round and Medal Games.

The Preliminary Round will be a single round-robin competition, as each team will play all the other five teams. Then, the teams ranked 1st and 2nd in the preliminary round will play for the Gold Medal game, while those ranked 3rd and 4th will play for the Bronze Medal game.

In order to create the compeition schedule, a seeding format will be adopted. First, the first four slots were placed according to the finishing order among the teams previously participating in the 2006 Asian University Men’s Basketball Championship. Then ,the remaining two slots were filled in by the order of entry confirmation for those teams which didn’t participate in the 2006 Asian University Men’s Basketball Championship.

All the competitors for this Championship must be born between January 1, 1984 and December 31, 1990.

2008 Asian University Men’s Basketball Championship Competition Schedule

Date Day Time Home Team vs. Visiting Team
October 11th Sat 1300 TPE (2) vs. (5) LIB
October 11th Sat 1500 Opening Ceremony
October 11th Sat 1600 KOR (1) vs. (6) IRI
October 11th Sat 1800 CHN (3) vs. (4) HKG
October 12th Sun 1500 TPE (2) vs. (3) CHN
October 12th Sun 1700 IRI (6) vs. (4) HKG
October 12th Sun 1900 LIB (5) vs. (1) KOR
October 13th Mon 1500 KOR (1) vs. (4) HKG
October 13th Mon 1700 LIB (5) vs. (3) CHN
October 13th Mon 1900 TPE (2) vs. (6) IRI
October 14th Tue 1500 IRI (6) vs. (5) LIB
October 14th Tue 1700 HKG (4) vs. (2) TPE
October 14th Tue 1900 CHN (3) vs. (1) KOR
October 15th Wed 1500 HKG (4) vs. (5) LIB
October 15th Wed 1700 CHN (3) vs. (6) IRI
October 15th Wed 1900 KOR (1) vs. (2) TPE
October 16th Thu 1500 Bronze Medal Game Team#3 vs. Team#4
October 16th Thu 1700 Gold Medal Game Team #1 vs. Team# 2
October 16th Thu 2000 Closing Ceremony & Farewell Party(Kilin Hotel of Taipei)

-- Competition System: The system comprises of two stages: Preliminary Round and Medal Games.
-- The Preliminary Round: The format will be a single round-robin competition, as each team will play all the other participating teams in the Preliminary Round.
-- Medal Games: The teams ranked 1st and 2nd in the preliminary round will play for the Gold Medal game, while those ranked 3rd and 4th places will play for the Bronze Medal game.
-- Seeding Format: The first four seeds were selected according to the finishing order among the teams participating in the 2006 Asian University Men’s Basketball Championship. The remaining seeds were filled in by the order of the teams confirming their entry.

Rosters

Taiwan University Select
Lee Wei-lun G 172 64 Fujen University
Chou Tzu-hua G 184 85 Fujen University
Chen Shun-hsiang F 190 90 Fujen University
Chang Po-sheng G 185 83Taiwan University of Arts
Lin Ching-pang G 190 80 Chinese Culture University
Lu Cheng-ju F 194 88 TPEC
Lin Yi-hui F 191 89 NTNU
Wang Chien-wei F 190 91 Fujen University
Wu Chien-lung F 193 93 Chinese Culture University
Cheng Chih-hao C 208 94 Fujen University
Wu Tai-hao C 202 100 NTNU
Nian Shu-hao C 197 90 Fujen University

Notre Dame Univ.
Miguel Martinez 189
Marwan Ziadeh 200
Georges Badawi 183
Georges Akiki 173
Patrick Bou Abboud 200
Jad Bachour 196
Roudy Farraj 190
Rachad El Nawar 195
Raymonf Dagher 197
Robert Bou Dagher 202
Jean Abd El Nour 198

Iran University Select
DAVOUDICHEGANI, Aren 179
SAHAKIAN, Oshin 194
AKBARIBISHEH, Mohammadreza 192
DORAGHI, Ali 202
AMINI, Amir 187
BORDBAR FANI, Mojtaba 200
BAHERAN, Ali 184
ZAREEI, Mohammad 190
AKHAVANBITAGHGIR, Mohammad Javad 190
JAMSHIDI JAFARABADI, Ali 190
FARAHANI, Navid 190
SHAMSALDINSAEID, Ali 190
MONAVARI, Siavash 190

Official AUB web site  http://aub.pixnet.net/blog/
http://www.cityu.edu.hk/cityu/index.html
http://www.hanyang.ac.kr/english/

Thursday, October 09, 2008

SBL rejects broadcast offer

Local news outlets reported that the SBL Committee had rejected the broadcast right fee offer from ESPN Taiwan and Videoland, the league's broadcast partners in the past five years and hold the negotiation priority, and did not rule out opening the bid.

ESPN Taiwan and Videoland upped their offer from NT 39.2 million to 42 million, but the number was still far from SBL's asking price of NT 56 million.

ESPN and VL lowered the offer because of the expenditure in the next season is expected to rise. Without a venue to play in Taipei, the SBL was forced to play in other cities in the 2008-09 season.