Chien Ming-fu leads Taiwan to first win in WUG

165cm “Little Giant” Chien Ming-fu scored all of his 18 points in the second half on 7-8 shooting as Taiwan edged Japan, 85-82, and finally got their first victory in the World University Games.

Sitting out the first half, Chien was inserted when starting point guard Lee Chih-ming committed his fourth foul. In 15 minutes, Chien teared Japan apart with his dazzling speed. Chien’s two free-throws with 11.2 seconds remaining iced the 3-point victory for Taiwanese.

Chen Hsin-an topped the team with 21 points, although shooting 1-7 from the three-point range. Chang Chih-feng had 14. Japan was led by Hiroyuki Kinoshita’s 18 points. Kyosuke Setoyama had 14. Identical twins Joji Takeuchi had 11 points and Kosuke Takeuchi with 7 points, both pulling down 7 baords.

WUG – Taiwan 81-99 Mexico

Chang Chih-feng again paced Taiwan NT with a team-high 16 points but he was unable to beat Mexico on his own. Taiwan lost to Mexico, 81-99, in the second group game of the WUG in Daegu, and finished last-place in the preliminary round.

Chen Hsin-an turned in a disappointing 5-for-20, 14-point performance. Taiwan was beaten on the boards by the Mexicans, trailing 23-52 in that department. They will have to play for the No. 13-20 classification games.

Taiwan lost to Yugo in WUG opener

Taiwan lost to Serbia-Montenegro, 89-104, in their opening game of the World University Games, which is held in Daegu, Korea. Chang Chih-feng led Taiwan, which led 44-40 in halftime, with 21 points (4 3-PT) and 5 rebounds. While Chen Hsin-an had 15. Taiwan will meet Mexico tomorrow in their second and last game in the preliminaries.
Quarter score: 16-21, 44-40, 67-71, 89-104

Taiwan NT Update

Philippines tour concluded
Taiwan NT tied PBA’s Purefood TJ Hot Dogs, 74-74, in the sixth and last warmup games of the Philippines tour and finished the tour with 3 wins, 2 ties and one loss. They defeated another PBA team, Shell Turbo Charges, 74-66, in the previous game.

Taiwan NT will be back to Taiwan today and continue training before going back to Philippines again for the NBL Open Championship (See below).

BAP-NBL National Open Championship
Sources say the eighth team, San Miguel All-Stars, is being added to the BAP-NBL National Open Championship to complete the 8-team field. Taiwan NT is one of 4 foreign teams invited to the tourney, which will be held from Sep. 11-17. CTBA says Taiwan NT will head for Harbin, China directly after the tournament.

Taiwan NT edges Philippines Young Men, 85-84

Nearly blowing a 12-point lead, Taiwan NT held on and edged Philippines Young Men NT, 85-84 last night (Aug.12) in the fourth warmup game of the Philippines tour. They will meet PBA’s Shell Turbo Charges tonight.

Taiwan NT record in the Philippines tour:
Game 1: Taiwan 90-90 Pampanga Bulls (NBL)
Game 2: Taiwan 61-78 Barangay Ginebra Kings (PBA)
Game 3: Taiwan 66-65 Philippines NT
Game 4: Taiwan 85-84 Philippines Junior NT

At the same time, Taiwan NT will visit the Philippines once again next month. This time they will participate in the “BAP-NBL National Open Championship”, which will be a 7-team tournament including four foreign teams.

The tournament will be held in Cebu City from Sep. 10-17. The participating teams are: Taiwan NT, Jordan NT, Qatar NT, Satria Muda Britama (Runner-up in Indonesian League), Cebuana Lhuillier RP Team, NBL All-Stars North, NBL All-Stars South

Taiwan NT lost to Ginebra, beat Philippines NT

Taiwan NT, who is touring Philippines for the preparation of the upcoming ABC Championship, lost to PBA’s Ginebra, 61-78, in a friendly game on Aug.10. They did edge Philippines NT, 66-65, the next day thanks to Tien Lei’s go-ahead layup with 18 seconds remaining. Taiwan NT will meet Philippines Junior NT tonight(Aug.12) in the fourth warmup game.

Taiwan NT levels Pampanga 90-90

Taiwan NT leveled Pampanga Bulls 90-90 in the first warmup game of its Philippines tour. The game was held on Aug.7 at the Bren Z. Guiao Convention Center, City of San Fernando, with no overtime period being played.

The Taiwanese clung to a slim 29-28 lead after the first period. From there, it was an all-Pampanga show as Dave Bautista, Billy Bansil and Marlon Tadeo defied their much taller opponents to take the half, 53-48.

The Bulls then got a big boost after Taiwan main man Tien Lei got his fifth and final foul with still over seven minutes to play. However, the Taiwanese rallied to take the lead with less than a minute to play behind Tsun Wen-din and Wu Dai-hao, 90-89. Tadeo then drew a foul with 25 seconds to play but could only split his free throws to tie the score at 90-90. Taiwan NT then failed to score as the Bulls recovered possession. Ariel Garcia missed the potential game winner as his jumper with 1.8 seconds to go bounced off the rim.

Bautista, the current NBL MVP race leader, topped the Bulls with 20 points. Bansil and Tadeo added 17 points each. Chiu Chi-yi paced the visitors with 18 points while Wu added 15. Yen Shin-shu tallied 11 points, all in the first half.

PAMPANGA (90) – D. Bautista 20, Bansil 17, Tadeo 17, Santos 12, Tolentino 6, A. Garcia 5, Duyag 5, Alberto 2, Mañalac 2, Yambao 2, Manlutac 1, Coronel 1, R. Garcia 0, S. Garcia 0, Cocjin 0.

TAIWAN NT (90) – Chiu Chih-yi 18, Wu Dai-hao 15, Tsun Wen-din 14, Yen Shin-shu 11, Tien Lei 10, Chen Chih-chung 7, Chen Huei 5, Yang Che-yi 4, Hong Chi-chao 4, Lin Chi-jay 2, Wu Chih-wei 0, Wu Chih-yun 0, Lee Chi-yi 0, Ho Sho-jen 0, Yang Yu-ming 0.

Period Scores: 28-29, 53-48, 72-67, 90-90.

Super League opens on November 21st

Key dates and more details were announced after the second meeting of the Super League Committee meeting yesterday. The Super League will open its first season on November 21st and each team will play a 24-game schedule.

Teams(7): Yulon Dinos, BCC Mars, Bank of Taiwan, Taiwan Beer, Jutai Technology, Dacin Construction, SINA Lions
Regular Season: Nov. 21, 2003 - Apr. 11, 2004
Playoffs: Starts on Apr. 15, 2004
Venue: Taipei Physical Education Gymnasium
Competition Format:
-- Game: Four 10-minute periods.
-- Regular season: 4-round robin format (Each team plays its opponents four times); each team plays a total of 24 games. Games will be scheduled only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
-- Playoffs: Top four teams in the regular season advance to the playoffs. No.1 seed meets No.4 seed and No.2 meets No.3 in the best-of-three semi-final series. Winners meet in a best-of-five Finals which starts on April 21st, 2004.
-- All-Star Game: January 30th.

Main Sponsor/Marketing Group: NIKE Taiwan/ESPN Taiwan

Taiwan basketball notes

Super League
With the help from the NSC(National Sports Council), CTBA will launch the new-formatted A-League which is called the “Super League” in November. The new league is still semi-pro, but in some way is trying to push Taiwanese basketball to the professional level.

A total of 7 teams are expected to play, including Yulon Dinos, Jutai Technology, Dacin Constructions, BCC Mars, Bank of Taiwan, Taiwan Beer and SINA Lions.

A couple of principles are set after the meetings last week. First of all, from now on teams will not pay high school players, which is seen by observers as the biggest reform in Taiwanese basketball in the last ten years. High school players will have to go thru the annual DRAFT to sign with any team. Currently, most A-League players are still college students.

Also, in the first year the league will not set the team salary cap and will not allow imports, in order to cut down budgets.

The inaugural season will open in November and schedule games only on weekends. Details of the new season remained to be discussed.

ESPN Taiwan and NIKE joined forces and won the bidding war(over Videoland TV/ERA TV) of the league’s marketing/broadcasting rights for the first three years.

NT-WUG Squad warmups
Taiwan Senior NT beat the WUG squad, 83-75, last week in the second warmup game. Taiwan NT also won the first game with a 20-point margin.

Taiwan NT will open its last stage of preparation on August 6th with a tour to Philippines, where they will meet a couple of NBL teams in a series of exhibition games.

“Anklebreaker” visits Taiwan
Occidental College(NCAA Div-III) guard Song Cun, a second generation Chinese-American, is now touring Taiwan for a NIKE streetball campaign “Battleground Asia” along with a French group “SlamNation”.

Standing only 5-6, Cun is known for his ill crossover dribble and is nicknamed “Anklebreaker”. Cun is a all-conference guard and led Occidental to NCAA Div-III elite eight this year. He will try to pursuit a professional career in Asia.

Chen Hsin-an cut by Nuggets

Chen Hsin-an was cut by the Denver Nuggets this morning, failing to make the Nuggets' 17-man summer league team roster. Chen will be back to Taiwan soon and return to the WUG NT training.

Chen make the first cut Wednesday, when the Nuggets trimmed their free agent camp roster from 34 to 23. Nuggets assistant Jarinn Akana said Chen has a strong body, show his potential to be an effective back-up 2 or 3, and was able to hold his own in the camp. However, with his limited experience in the upper competition, poor defense and the whole knowledge of the game, it was very difficult for Chen to make the roster.

Chen was cut by the Sacramento Kings in last year's pre-season training camp.