CTBA reaffirms Chou appointment

CTBA reaffirmed the appointment of Chou Jun-san as the Taiwan men's national team head coach as local media reported that a local sports firm was pressing the association to hire a foreign coach.

Taiwan NT head coaches announced

Women's NT

FIBA Asia Women's Championship: Chang Hui-ying, Taipower

**Chang replaced Cathay Life's Hung Ling-yao, who resigned from her post citing family business one week after her nomination, as the head coach. Chang will be making her debut as the NT head coach.

FIBA U19 Women's Championship: Chen Mei-li, Tamsui High School

FIBA Asia U16 Women's Championship: Shi Chao-chieh, Yung-jen Junior High School

Men's NT

FIBA Asia Men's Championship: Chou Jun-san, Taiwan Beer

FIBA U19 Men's Championship: Huang Wan-lung, Song-shan High School

FIBA Asia U16 Men's Championship: Lin Cheng-ming, Nen-ren High School

Review: 2010-11 SBL awards

Most Valuable Player: Rashad Jones-Jennings, Pure Youth
All-SBL Team:
Rashad Jones-Jennings, Pure Youth
Tien Lei, Dacin
Chen Chih-chung, Yulon
Chen Shun-hsiang, Bank of Taiwan
Chen Ching-huan, KKL

Chou named Taiwan NT head coach

[Yen Chia-hua]
The Chinese Taipei Basketball Association (CTBA) named Taiwan Beer assistant coach Chou Jun-san as the new head coach of the Taiwan national team this past Sunday, sending a shockwave to the local basketball community.

Taiwan Beer wins 2011 SBL title

Taiwan Beer beat Dacin Tigers 83-78 in overtime in Game 5 of the 2011 SBL Finals Friday night to win its third title in team history and its first title in three years.
Taiwan Beer, which won the best-of-seven series 4-1, won its first title after completing a back-to-back title run in 2007-2008 with its head coach Yen Chia-hua becoming the first SBL coach winning three titles.

Confession

I'm sorry for not posting anything to the blog for almost the entire March. I visited New Zealand for 10 days for a business trip and the heavy work load had kept me from writing basketball regularly.

I begin to wonder whether I should stop posting those game stats, which took me a lot of time, because the SBL now (finally) has an efficient stats webpage where you can find anything if you can read Chinese.

The final decision has not been made yet. The most important thing is whether I will have enough time to keep writing the reports I have been writing for more than 10 years. However, I do think that there should be someone writing about Taiwanese basketball in English regularly so local basketball can be understood and recognized by English-speaking fans.

As I write now Taiwan Beer and Dacin Tigers have booked their appearances in the 2011 SBL Finals. On paper, TB is too strong to lose in a best-of-seven series, given that it features almost half of the national team lineup.

However, I have made it a habit not to support teams which only improve themselves by accumulating top players. My love goes to teams like Butler or VCU, lesser known teams or underdogs. That said, I hope Dacin can pull off an upset to make local basketball much more excited.

Dacin, Taiwan Beer to meet in SBL Finals

Dacin Tigers will meet Taiwan Beer in Taiwan's 2011 Super Basketball League (SBL) Finals after eliminating Pure Youth Construction 4-1 in the best-of-seven first round playoffs Friday.

The best-of-seven Finals will be played from April 8-17 at Hsinjhuang Stadium in New Taipei City.

The two teams will meet in the finals for the third time after splitting the previous two meetings with Taiwan Beer defeating Dacin 4-2 in 2007 and Dacin winning 4-3 in 2009.

Led by star forward Tien Lei and import Alexus Foyle from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the Tigers made the playoffs as the No. 3 seed after a 17-13 regular season and upset the No. 2 seed Pure Youth in five games.

Dacin will be looking for redemption after losing to Yulon Luxgen 4-2 in the title series last year.

Taiwan Beer, which led the seven-team league in the regular season with 22 wins and 8 losses, swept the defending champion Yulon 4-0 in the first round and was able to enjoy an 11-day rest before Game 1 of the Finals.

The regular season champion, which won back-to-back titles in 2007-2008, advanced to the finals for the first time in two years. It features arguably the best lineup in the league which includes American forward Emmanuel Jones and local players Wu Tai-hao and Yang Ching-min.

The SBL, the top tier basketball competition in Taiwan, was established in 2003. Yulon won four titles in the league's first seven years.

Hu, Chang named HBL MVPs

Hu Lung-mao of Song-shan and Chang Chi-fang of Hu-jiang were named 2011 HBL men's and women's Most Valuable Players after leading their schools to titles Sunday.

Chang also led the women's competition in assists and steals while Hu was the rebounding leader in the men's competition.

The 2011 HBL awards are listed below.

Men's:
MVP: Hu Lung-mao (Song-shan)
Freshman of the Year: Huang Hung-han (Nen-ren)
Rebounding leader: Hu Lung-mao (Song-shan)
Assists leader: Chen Ying-chun (Nen-ren)
Steals leader: Chiu Jih-cheng (Nan-shan)
Blocks leader: Chen Kuan-chuan (Nan-shan)

Women's:
MVP: Chang Chi-fang (Hu-jiang)
Freshman of the Year: Huang Ling-chuan (Hai-shan)
Rebounding leader: Cheng Yi-hsiu (Pu Men)
Assists leader: Chang Chi-fang (Hu-jiang)
Steals leader: Chang Chi-fang (Hu-jiang)
Blocks leader: Han Ya-en (Tamsui)

Hu-jiang wins first HBL women's title

Chang Chi-fang saved the best for her last game as a high schooler. The 174cm all-around guard scored a HBL-record 45 points to go with 10 rebounds, five assists and four steals to lead Hu-jiang High School upset favorite Hai-shan High School 87-73 and win its first HBL title in school history Sunday.

Chang scored 31 points in the first half and single-handedly paced her school throughout the entire game. She won the MVP by averaging 34 points, eight rebounds and three steals in two games in the Final Four.

Chen Chung-wei had 22 points and eight boards for Hu-jiang, which coincidentally also defeated Hai-shan 77-62 in the third place game last season for the school's best finish at the time.

Chang, who idolizes Rajon Rondo of the Boston Celtics, was 16 of 27 from the field, including 14 of 22 from the two-point range, and eight of nine from the free-throw line in 39 minutes Sunday night, played down her scoring record, saying that it was the championship that matters.

Chang smashed the previous single game scoring record in the Final Four of 40 points established by former Hai-shan center Liu Yi-chun.

Hai-shan, which had won three straight titles from 2006-2008, missed out on its opportunity for the fourth title in school history. Its "Twin Centers" Huang Hsiang-ting had 23 points and 9 rebounds and Wang Wei-lin tallied 13 points and 11 rebounds. Point guard Chen Yen-yu had 17 points.

There was another upset in the third place game, where Jin-ou High School overcame a 14-point deficit to knock down defending champion Tamsui High School 57-56 to secure its best finish in five years.

Jin-ou, which was out of the final eight last season to see its consecutive final eight appearance record end after 21 years, also snapped its seven-game losing streak against the mighty Tamsui.

The defending champ, which led 35-21 at halftime, engaged in a dog-fight with Jin-ou in the final minutes but failed to make a basket in two possessions in the final 26.1 seconds.

Having won six titles, Jin-ou was once the most powerful team in high school women's basketball, but it was unable to win one after 2004.

Lin Yi-chun led Jin-ou with 19 points and eight rebounds while Chang Yu-wen had 12 points, six rebounds, five assists and seven steals.

Tamsui's Lin Yu-ting, the freshman of the year and the MVP last year, had 20 points and 12 rebounds.

Hu leads Song-shan to unprecedented three-peat in HBL men's finals

MVP Hu Lung-mao had dominant performances on consecutive nights as Song-shan High School completed a unprecedented feat of a three-peat after a 87-59 rout of Nan-shan High School Sunday night, becoming the first school in HBL history to win three straight men's title.

Li-chi HS, San-min HS, Tsai-shin HS and Nan-shan HS have all repeated as champions in the past 22 years, but no school was able to complete a three-peat until Song-shan did it.

Arguably the best player in HBL this year, Hu had 29 points, 12 rebounds, five steals and three blocks in the title game after tallying 35 points and 13 boards in the semifinal game.

Hu, a 195cm lefty forward-center, was named the MVP with an average of 32 pints and 13.5 rebounds in two Final Four games.

Song-shan has won three titles in four Finals appearances. It lost to San-min in the finals in 2000 before defeating Nen-ren 69-61 and 83-80 in 2009 and 2010.

Hu also became the first player to lead his high school to three title in three years. He played pivotal roles in Song-shan's previous title runs despite not winning the MVPs. Forward Hung Kang-chao scored 48 points in his last high school game last year to win the MVP honor. San yi-ching, a undersized 193cm center, was named MVP after a 16-point, 6 rebounds title game outing in 2009.

"We have made history and this group of players deserve this honor. I'm proud of them, " Song-shan head coach Huang Wan-long said. Huang and Hu were both in tears in their long hugs after the final buzzer.

Song-shan, which has been known for its tenacious man-to-man defense, lived up to its nickname "the green shield" again in the second quarter, when it outscored Nan-shan 25-4 and jumped to a double-digit lead it never gave up.

Song-shan led 44-24 at the half and all Nan-shan could do was cut the deficit to 15 points, but Hu and Song-shan's outside shooters made several crucial plays to increase the lead to 20 points.

Song-shan sophomore center Fan Shih-en had a career night of 16 points and 6 rebounds. Guards Huang Po-wei and Yu Yi-hsiang scored 15 each.

Yang Hsing-chih paced Nan-shan with 19 points.

In the third place game, talented point guard Chen Ying-chun had 23 points, 10 rebounds, four steals and two blocks to finish his high school career and lead Nen-ren to a 82-70 win over San-min High School.

However, Chen had to graduate without a HBL title trophy in his hands. Nen-ren lost to Song-shan in the HBL Finals in 2009 and 2010 and failed to make the finals after the semifinal loss to Nan-shan Saturday night.

Chen, who suffered a minor concussion in the semifinal game, was determined to play in his final game despite doctors and coaches advised him against it. "I refused to sit on the bench in my final game, " Chen was quoted as saying.

With Chen controling the tempo, Nen-ren led by as many as 22 points as San-min never had a chance to mount a serious comeback run.

Center Wang Jen-chieh had 28 points, 10 rebounds and two blocks for Nen-ren. Tien Cheng-tung had 11 points and eight boards.

San-min, the only final four teams from southern Taiwan, was led by Wu Song-wei's 30 points. Center Shih Yen-tsung had 19 points and 15 rebounds.

(Photos: HBL, UDN, Apple Daily)