Yunnan sign Taiwanese veteran Hsiung Jen-jen

Videoland veteran forward Hsiung jen-jen will pay his second visit to Chinese pro pleague CBA. Yunnan signs Hsiung to a one-year contract with salary undisclosed. Hsiung played in China in 2000-01 when Sina Lions left Taiwan to play in the Chinese League. He will play for VL again once the CBA season is over in March next year, hoping to help VL in the SBL postseason.

Taiwan NT starts training camp again

Taiwan NT opened yet another training camp on Sunday for the upcoming East Asian Games in Macao. It will train in Taipei before leaving for South Korea for a 5-game training tour. After that, the team will be back in Taiwan and train in Chiayi, a southern city, before the East Asian Games. Taiwan NT will play five games vs. KBL teams in Korea from October 1st to October 9th.

Talk n' Text sweeps Taiwan tour 3-0

Philippines' Talk n' Text Phone Pals sweeps Taiwan friendly tour with a perfect 3-0 record as philipino favorite Asi Taulava and Damian Cantrell obvious the brightest stars in the tour. TNT won two games by more than 30 and beat SBL champion Yulon by eight.

Dacin, Videoland and Yulon were all hurt by the absence of current NT players, who are entering another training camp for the preparation of East Asian Games after finishing 9th-place in the Asian Championship earlier this month. The absence of top players resulted in lopsided games which drew little fanfare, averaging only a couple hundreds per game.

Game 1: TNT 118-75 Dacin (A. Taulava 21p+14rb, D. Cantrell 23p+14rb ; Lin Yi-huei 27p, Chen Tse-wei 14p+6rb, Lin Hwan-chao 11p+7rb, Su Yi-chieh 10p+7a)

Game 2: TNT 120-90 VL (D. Cantrell 20p+9rb, A. Washington 17p+8rb ; Hu Yu-wei 18p, Hong Chi-chao 15p)

Game 3: TNT 96-88 Yulon (A. Taulava 23p+11rb ; Wu Chih-wei 21p+5rb+4s+3a, Chiu Chi-yi 29p)

Taiwan NT adds Wu Chih-wei as replacement

Taiwan NT added veteran center Wu Chih-wei to strengthen its frontline for the East Asian Games after the departure of Wu Dai-hao, who enrolled in U.S. BYU-Hawaii and will start his playing career in North America.

Players who missed the Asian Championship -- Chen Hsin-an, Ho Sho-jen, Lin Chi-jay and Chang Chih-feng -- are expected to sit out the East Asian Games, which will be held in Macao in October, as well.

SBL to apply relegation rules, releases provisional season format

Team officials of seven SBL (Super Basketball League) teams gathered for the first committee meeting for the 2005-06 season and came up with a couple conclusions. For the first time the league will install relegation rules. Also the provisional season format was announced.

 

Starting from the end of 2005-06 season, the sixth-place and seventh-place SBL teams will have to play in a double round robin relegation series with the A-League champion. Last-placed team of the series will be downgraded to (or stay in) the A-League. For now, SBL will stay a 7-team league and will not look for expansion.

 

The committee decided the 2005-06 season format as follows:

 

December 1, 2005 - December 4, 2005: Exhibition games.
December 10, 2005 - May 14, 2006: Regular season (Each team faces its opponents five times and plays a total of 30 games).
February 4: All-Star Game
Playoffs:
May 19, 2006 - May 25, 2006: First Round (Best-of-Five)
May 27, 2006 - June 11, 2006: Finals (Best-of-Seven)

 

Other important announcement:

 

-- No import players and Chinese players are allowed to play. All SBL players are required to have Taiwanese IDs.
-- Starting from 2005-06 season, college freshmen can't play in the SBL and the UBA at the same time. A college freshman will play either for his club team or his college team.
-- Any team that boycotts the game or refuses to take the court under protest has to play a 600,000 NTD fine.
-- TV reply will not be used to change calls.
-- Any team that withdraws from the league in mid-season is not allowed to re-enter SBL or play in any CTBA-sanctioned competition in two years.
-- ESPN Taiwan, Videoland and ETSN will share broadcasting right in the 2005-06 season.

Sina will stay in SBL

Sina Lions announced it will stay in the SBL and keep current roster intact, but the team will look for sponsors and is possible to change its team name once sponsors are secured.

Philippines basketball sets foot on Taiwan

Philippines basketball players will be seen a lot in Taiwan before the end of the year. PBA announced it will schedule an regular season oversea game in Taipei on December 14th, the second oversea game in PBA history. PBA's Talk N Text Phone Pal also will visit Taipei for a three-game friendly series.

"Taiwan-Philippines Goodwill Games", hosted by CTBA and sponsored by Dynamic-Sky Multimedia Corp., Philippine Airlines and Elite Express, will feature Talk N Text to take on three Taiwanese SBL teams -- Yulon, Videoland and Dacin -- from September 23-25. All games will be played at TPEC Gym and televised by Videoland Sports TV.

Schedule:

9/23 19:00 Talk N Text vs. Dacin Construction
9/24 15:00 Talk N Text vs. Videoland Hunters
9/25 15:00 Talk N Text vs. Yulon Dinos

PBA will kick off its 31st season (Fiesta Conference) with eight provincial games in provincial venue outside Manila and one oversea game in Taipei. Defending Fiesta Conference champion Talk N Text will meet San Miguel in Taipei.

The first oversea game in PBA history took place last year, when Talk N Text met Shell in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Taiwan beat Kazakhstan for ninth palce in Asian Championship

Yang Yu-min had 20 points and Chen Chih-chun 14 as Taiwan rallied from a 16-point deficit to beat Kazakhstan and finished for ninth place in the 2005 Asian Championship. Taiwan failed to reach the goal of returning to the top six, although they played hard in every game.

 

Taiwan had a 5-2 record in the championship. It lost to China and Iran in the preliminary and was bumped out of the quarterfinal once again. While a ninth-place finish is better than 11th-place in 2003, no one will call it an improvement because the expectation is still high for the basketball-loving country.

 

Kazakhstan almost made every open three versus Taiwan's zone defense in the first 15 minutes and led 30-14 midway thru the second quarter. Sub Yang Che-yi have 9 points, including two timely threes, in the third to help Taiwan take the lead and entered the final quarter leading 57-53.

 

Behind starting point guard Andrei Shpeht, Kazakhstan recharged and took the lead 63-61. Taiwan head coach Lee Yun-kwang quickly put Tsun Wen-din, who had four fouls, back in and regained the momentum.

 

Yang Che-yi had 11 points, including 9 in the third quarter. Wu Dai-hao had 10 points. Lee Chi-yi Had 7 points.

 

Shpeht led Kazakhstan with 16 points. V. Rosnovski had 14 points. Like Taiwan, Kazakhstan came close of making the final eight before losing to Japan by two in the deciding preliminary game.

 

With most of its players born after 1980, Kazakhstan will be a team to watch in Asia's "second division" in the coming years after head coach Aleksei Erupkin and assistant Vitali Strebkov, both former NT players, taking over the new NT coaching staff. And keep an eye on Anton Ponomarev, a 17-year-old kid at 209cm who has a world of potential.

Defending high school champion Tsaishin shut down its basketball program

Tsaishin high school announced it will shut down its prominent basketball program after 15 years in the HBL(High School Basketball League). In 15 years, the private school won 4 titles, two runner-ups, two third-place and one fourth-place finish.

 

Current Taiwan NT players Tsun Wen-din and Wu Dai-hao and current SBL players like Ha Hsiao-yuan, O-Yang Jin-hen, Che Shi-jay, Zuo Tsun-kai, Lin Che-li, Lu Cheng-ju all graduated from Tsaishin HS.

 

Tsaishin won HBL champion in 2004-05 season, which means it won't have a chance to defend its title. It's a sad decision for a school which established its basketball identity and empire.

 

Most Tsaishin players are expected to transfer to other schools. Head coach Hsu Jin-che is also expected to look for coaching opportunities.

Taiwan beat Malaysia 109-71, will go for ninth vs. Kazakhstan

Taiwan NT again demonstrated its firepower in an easy 109-71 victory over Malaysia today and will meet Kazakhstan Friday in the ninth-place game of 2005 Asian Championship.

Taiwan took advantage of Malaysia's weaker defense and shot 17 for 37 from three-point territory. Wu Dai-hao led the team with 18 points. Tsun Wen-din had 16 points. Chou Shih-yuan and Wang Chih-chun scored 14 apiece while Lee Chi-yi had 13. Yang Yu-min collected 10 points.

Taiwan NT beat Kazakhstan in the Jones Cup tournament in July.