Saturday, August 08, 2009

Taiwan beat Uzbekistan to roll into second round

TIANJIN (FIBA Asia Championship) - Chinese Taipei raced ahead early and the used the remainder of the game to try out their bench, yet blew away Uzbekistan 102-78 to finish their Group B engagements with a win, on Saturday.

Taipei, thus finished 2-1 in their preliminary round and headed into the eight-final round with the win boosting their confidence.

Uzbekistan, playing the Championship after failing to qualify for the last edition, have lost all their three games so far and will play against the fourth placed team of Group A in the 13-16 classification.

Yang Chin-Min provided the early spark for Taipei – with an incredible 67% (4/6), including a 1/3 in three-pointers – scoring nine points in the first quarter as the wild card entrants virtually sealed the issue when they led 23-10 at the end of the first ten minutes.

Taipei played for the clock thenceforth.

Yang Chin-Min was rested for the remainder of the game, but Chang Chih-Feng, Chang Tsung-Hsieh and Wu Tai-Ho took over.

Chang Tsung-Hsieh top scored for Taipei 22 points, with the other Chang contributing 13. Wu had 15.

Aleksandr Kozlov had a game-high 25 points in a losing cause.

Ildar Safarov contributed 14 points.

S Mageshwaran
FIBA Asia