South Korea beat Japan 68-58 in the East Asia Basketball Championship title game Sunday and Taiwan lost to Chinese second national team 107-90, finishing a disappointing fourth in the Asian Championship qualifier.
The final game was pretty much meaningless for Taiwan, who was out of the Asian Men's Championship for the first time in more than 24 years. South Korea and Japan won a pair of Asian Championship seeds granted to the East Asia Sub-zone.
Taiwan trailed from start to finish. Facing taller Chinese players, it was outrebounded again 40-27 and had no chance of winning. China's second national team led by nine in the end of the first quarter and 10 at the half.
Tien Lei led Taiwan with 21 points and five rebounds. Tseng Wen-ting followed with 15 and Wu Tai-hao had 11. Lee Hsueh-lin and Ho Shou-cheng scored 10 each.
Taiwan NT was only 10-for-19 from the free-throw line.
The next international competition for Taiwan will be the East Asian Games in Macao in the end of the year. Taiwan will enter EAG as the defending champion.