Jones Cup Day 2

(Note: Day 1 score and summary updated)

AIA 81-67 Qatar (42-33)

AIA, which consists of NCAA players and lost to Jordan last night, was not intimidated by the more experienced Qatar NT this time. Led by Wellington Smith, the UWV forward who scored 10 points in a 13-4 opening run, AIA had a balanced inside-outside game and cruised to a 81-67 victory.

Benjamin Woodside, who came from North Dakota State, has been the most consistent performer on the team in the first two games, making three of AIA's 12 threes in the game. Woodside had 19 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists.

Laval Lucas-Perry had a fastbreak dunk, a three and a three-point play in the second quarter as AIA led by as many as 14 points.

AIA head coach Dave Bliss said after the game that AIA played better in the game in terms of defense and shot-making. The ad hoc team has a long way to go after a five-day mini training camp before the tournament, Bliss said.

Qatar fell to 1-1 after two games under its new American head coach Kent Davison, a highly respected veteran whose coaching experience spans most levels of basketball in the United States – high school, junior college, NCAA Division I and professional minor leagues.

AIA: Benjamin Woodside 19p+6rb+5a, Laval Lucas-Perry 14p+2s, Dane Brumagin 13p, Wellington Smith 12p
Qatar: Daoud Musa 17p, E.A. Saeed 16p+6rb

Egypt 80-63 Jordan (40-29)

Egypt, the 4th-place team in the 2007 Africa Championship, routed the defending champion Jordan NT 80-63 in a wire-to-wire victory.

210cm center Tarek El-Gannam had 13 of his 15 points in the first half as Egypt broke the game open early in the second quarter. El-Gannam pulled down 6 rebounds.

Jordan was hurt by its 18 turnovers as a team. The defending champion did close the gap to four points but Egypt just couldn't miss tonight, making 67% of its field goals attempts, and pulled away quickly.

Jordan was out of synch all game. Zaid Alkhas, who had 19 points yesterday, scored only one point today. I believe Jordan head coach Mario Palma would not be a happy man when his best player failed to score more than two points in a game.

Kazakhstan 87-71 Korea (37-31)

Kazakhstan handed Korea its second straight defeat by controlling the boards (41-19) and making open shots.

Judging from the first two games, I might be wrong but this Korean University select team is probably the weakest Korean college team I've seen in years.

Kazakhstan: Seva Fadeikin 27p, Anton Ponomarev 14p+9rb
Korea: Park Rae-hun 18p, Heo Il-young 12p, Kim Myung-hoon 11p

Australia U-19 80-67 Taiwan (42-32)

Isn't it weird? Taiwan NT beat Korea University select team yesterday but was routed by a group of Australian high schoolers? Anything happens on the basketball court but it doesn't make sense.

Taiwan NT trailed the entire game and was outplayed by the Emus team inside and out. They couldn't control the board, losing 40-28, due to height disadvantage but they couldn't make shots either. The 13-point loss was definitely embarrassing.

Taiwan's man-to-man defense failed to contain Dellavedova in the first half. A switch to zone defense in the second half did not help much.

Australia: Mitchell Young 17p, Matthew Dellavedova 15p
Taiwan: Yang Chin-min 14p

Standings:
Kazakhstan 2-0
Taiwan 1-1
Qatar 1-1
Jordan 1-1
AIA 1-1
Australia 1-1
Egypt 1-1
Korea 0-2

2008 Jones Cup stats download

The organizer started providing with the game stats today, but they're still not posting them online. The files are in Microsoft Excel format.

Download link: Here

I will keep uploading the latest game stats, but you can also download the stats yourself with this link (if you read Chinese...):

Day 1 videos and images

Here are the best I can do today. I did record three games but the file size is too large to upload to Youtube without cutting.

Never mind the reporter's English, OK? She's trying, and she's cute...

Anyway, Dave Bliss talked about how the AIA came up with different group of players every year since 2006 while other teams returned most of their players. Bliss was right. And that's why they lost the game to experienced opponents.

The pregame interview of Jordanian NT head coach Mario Palma.

A couple of screen captures:

Yang Ching-min had 22 points in the win.

Ouyang Ching-heng made his national team debut.

Jones Cup venue: Sinjhuang Stadium. Well, check out the stands. I guess most people find better things to do tonight rather than watching basketball huh...

Day 1: Kazakhstan, Jordan score opening wins

Taiwan 72-68 Korea University Selects (39-29)

Yang Ching-min scored 15 of his game-high 22 points in the second half as Taiwan NT edged Korea University Selects 72-68 for its first win in the 30th Jones Cup tournament.

Korea, which trailed by ten at the half, closed the gap and even took the lead briefly in the final quarter. As Taiwan clung to a mere three-point lead with 1:20 to go, Yang's reverse backhand layup boost the lead to five.

After Korea's three-pointer once again made it a three-point game with 17.8 seconds left, Yang made one of two free-throws with 5.3 seconds remaining and iced the game.

Lee Fung-yung had 9 points and puled down 13 boards for Taiwan, which entered the tourney without almost all of its core players: Chen Hsin-an, Tseng Wen-ting, Lin Chih-chieh, Wu Tai-hao and Tien Lei.

A 10-point halftime deficit didn't faze the Koreans, who went on a scoring tear and tied the game at 45-45 on Kim Hyeon-min's three with 4:40 to go in the third quarter.

Taiwan: Yang Chin-min 22p+6rb, Ouyang Ching-heng 11p, Hsu Chih-chan 11p+6rb, Lee Fung-yung 9p+13rb
Korea: Park Rae-hun 16p, Heo Il-young 26p+9rb

Kazakhstan 74-71 Australia U-19 (36-30)

Australia's young squad surprised an experienced Kazak team in the opening game of the 30th William Jones Cup but Kazakhstan still escaped with a 74-71 win. Both teams were sluggish, which was not uncommon in the opening day of any tournament, with two double-digit scorers apiece.

Kazak 6-9 backup Seva Fadeikin led all scorers with 18 points while Anton Ponomarev finished with 11 for Kazakhstan. Australia U-19 NT was led by Mitchell Young's 11 points. Matthew Dellavedova scored 10 points. Young Aussies were hurt by their rebounding, trailing 26-40 in that department.

Qatar 82-80 Egypt

Qatar: E.A. Saeed 18p+8rb, Daoud Musa 17p, Mansour El Hadary 16p+7rb+4a, A.T. Ali 10p+10rb
Egypt: Rami Gunady 28p+6rb, W. Badr 14p, T. El-Gannam 14p+8rb+3a+3s

Jordan 67-63 AIA

Veteran Zaid Alkhas made two crucial threes in overtime as Jordan defeated Athletes in Action 67-63 after the extra session and opened its quest for the second consecutive Jones Cup crown with an inspiring win.

Jordan made two free-throws in the last five seconds in regulation to send the game into overtime, during which it made three of its seven threes in the game.

Jordan: J.A. Shmala 20p+6rb, Zaid Alkhas 19p+7rb, T. Almaaytah 7p+10rb
AIA: Benjamin Woodside 14p, Wellington Smith 11p+9rb, Brett Winkelman 10p+7rb, Jamel McLean 11p+10rb, Da'Sean Butler 6p+7rb

Standings: Taiwan 1-0, Jordan 1-0, Qatar 1-0, Kazakhstan 1-0, Korea 0-1, Egypt 0-1, Australia 0-1, AIA 0-1

Jones Cup named All-Time Team

Twelve players, including eight men and four women, were named to the All-Time Team of the William Jones Cup, which is entering its 30th year.

Chen Hsin-an and Chen Chih-chung, both from Yulon, were the only active men's players while Chien Wei-chuan and Cheng Hui-yun were the only active women's player.

Men: Chen Jih-hsing, Hung Chun-che, Tseng Tseng-chiu, Cheng Chih-lung, Chou Chun-san, Chen Hsin-an, Cheng Chih-chung, Lo Hsing-liang

Women: Ma Li-na, Chien Wei-chuan, Chiang Yi-te, Cheng Hui-yun

The selection was determined after polling fans (accounts for 40% of the total points), basketball insiders (30%) and the media (30%).

R. William Jones Cup (also known as the Jones Cup) is an international basketball tournament held annually at Taipei, Taiwan. It was named after basketball promoter and one of the founders of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), Renato William Jones.

The tournament started on 1977, and ever since the Jones Cup tournament was held annually. There are two version of William Jones Cup, the tournament for men's basketball and for women's basketball both dominated by American teams since 1977.

In 2003, due to the SARS epidemic crisis in Asia, the tournament was cancelled but resumed the competition in 2004.

The tournament invited teams, clubs, collegiate and national teams, from around the world but mainly from the Asian region.

Jones Cup roster download

I created a shared folder at Box.net. Please visit here and feel free to download the complete rosters of eight participating teams. You will see some bad codes in the document. Don't worry, they're Chinese characters.

Jones Cup notes

-- To parents, friends and fans of players' from all visiting teams who sent emails: I will try to do my best to cover the Jones Cup as I have been doing in the past few years. But there is no guarantee because I have a day job and may not be able to write about the games daily in a timely fashion.

-- ESPN Taiwan will broadcast the tournament and in most Southeast Asian countries fans should be able to watch the games. It looks to me there is no free online broadcast this year.

-- The official web site of the Jones Cup is at http://30thjonescup.bros.com.tw/, which is pretty bad. It seems to me you can neither find game stats and boxscores nor player roster on the site. So what kind of OFFICIAL website is that?

Tien Lei to train in Sacramento

Apple Daily reported that Tien Lei, Wu Yung-jen and Hsu Wei-sheng are scheduled to participate in a two to four week special training program in Sacramento, California later this month.

The players will leave for Las Vegas on July 16 and observe the Vegas Summer League there for three days before going to Sacramento, Apple Daily reported, adding that the training was arranged by Sacramento’s Taiwanese-American scout Jack Mai, who has had strong ties with Taiwanese basketball.

Tien Lei, who sat out the entire 2007-08 SBL season to nurse a stress fracture in his left foot, will be instructed by Kings assistants Chuck Person and Jason Hamm in a four week training program. The first task for Tien, however, will be losing weight. It was reported that the 6-7 forward gained at least 15 kilos during his rehab.

Sacramento will be a familiar place for Tien, who played for Kings in the 2005 Vegas Summer League and became the first Taiwanese player to play in the U.S. summer league in history. The short stint was also set up by Jack Mai, who in 2002 took Chen Hsin-an to Sacramento’s preseason training camp as well. Chen was cut before the season opener.

Hsu and Wu, both came from Taiwan Mobile, will participate in a similar two week training program before heading home.

(photo source: ESPN Taiwan)

Four teams in Jones Cup women's group

CTBA confirmed Tuesday that there will be four women's teams in the upcoming Jones Cup Tournament, United Daily reported. Malaysian NT was added in the field which also includes Taiwan NT, Australia U-19 NT and Woori Bank from Korea's WKBL.

Israeli NT, which was to make its debut in the annual tournament, pulled out of the tourney and opted to play in another tournament in Russia.

Women's competition will be held from July 20-24 right after the men's games. Four participating teams will play in a single round robin preliminary round before a cross-over semifinal.

About 2008 Jones Cup

Where: Taipei, Taiwan
Venue: Sinjhuang Stadium, Taipei County
When: Men's competition July 10-18; Women's competition July 20-24
Teams:
Men (8):
Women (4): Taiwan NT, Australia U-19 NT, Israel U-20 NT, Woori Bank or another team to be identified from Korea's WKBL

Format:
Men: single round robin preliminary games, cross-over semifinal and 5-8 placing games, classification games
Women: single round robin preliminary games, cross-over semifinal, classification games

Ticket information:
http://www.ticket.com.tw/points/ticket_points.asp  (Mandarin)