Yulon Luxgen, which won four titles in the SBL's brief eight-year history, is obviously experiencing its lowest point in the SBL era.
After a 20-point loss to Taiwan Beer on Saturday, it has dropped six of its last eight games and is currently fourth on the standing with 13 wins and 11 losses.
On Saturday, Yulon trailed by as many as 31 points at one point. I don't think I have ever seen that when late head coach Chien Yi-fei and former coach Lee Yun-kwang, Zhang Xuelei were at the helm.
[Chen Che-yu]
Well, this is sort of an old news from last week, because I was too busy to write about it. Anyway, National Taiwan University of Art (NTUA) and National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) won the men's and women's UBA title last week.
Both school won its first ever UBA title in school history – as an underdog. So you could probably say it's a Taiwanese version of the March Madness.
KKL rookie forward Liu Chen was named Week 8 MVP after averaging 19.3 points and 7.3 rebounds in three games last week.
Liu's performance was highlighted by a 23-point, 12-rebound effort in a win over Dacin.
He had 31 points in the media voting over Quincy Davis of PY, who had 18 points, and TB forward Cheng Jen-wei's 12 points.
KKL head coach Hsu Chih-chao gave Liu credit for his scoring ability and improvement on rebounding, saying that Liu could perhaps play in the Taiwanese national team in the future.
Nan-shan HS revenged its bitter loss last year in the HBL finals against Song-shan HS yesterday. This time it routed Nen-jen HS 72-55 in the title game to win its sixth men's championship in school history.
Meanwhile, Taipei First Girls' HS, one of the best girls' high schools in the nation academically-wise, shocked everyone with its 75-67 win in overtime to claim its first women's HBL title in school history.
[Huang Wan-lung]
It turned out Chiu Da-tsun did not resign from his head coaching position, but Dacin Construction is now handing the coaching duty to its technical adviser Huang Wan-lung.
In other words, Chiu is now a head coach who does not need to coach.
Taiwan Beer guard Chen Shih-nian became the first SBL player to accumulate 1,000 assists after dishing out 9 assists in TB's 92-79 win over BOT Friday night.
Chen, who has spent nine years with TB since the SBL was established in 2004, now has 1,002 assists in 234 SBL games.
Nan-shan HS is ready to avenge for its championship game loss last year and go for its sixth title in school history in the 2012 HBL men's Final Four, which will be played today and tomorrow at the National Taiwan University Gymnasium.
A total of eight men's and women's teams will meet in the semifinal today.
Song-shan HS, which completed an unprecedented three-peat last season, was unable to reach quarterfinal this season. Hujiang HS, last season's women's titlist, finished fifth place in the quarterfinal round and failed to reach the final four.
Like other Asian countries, Taiwan has never stopped searching Taiwanese-born players or players with Taiwanese descent who were trained or are playing in the US to boost its basketball strength.
With the unexpected emergence and the global popularity of New York Knicks guard Jeremy Lin, it has been even more so.
The Central News Agency, Taiwan's semi-governmental new agency, has recently reported on a new case that the Chinese Taipei Basketball Association may want to take a look at.
The story reported on Joy Burke and TJ Burke, who hailed from Arizona and are playing at Arizona State and UC Riverside, respectively.
Taiwan Beer backup shooting guard Yang Yu-ming had 21 points, including five three-pointers, to win the 2012 SBL All-Star Game after leading the White Team to a 114-87 win over the Blue Team in his hometown of Kaohsiung.
Dacin import Noel Felix led the Blue Team with a game-high 28 points and six rebounds. Lu Cheng-ju of Yulon had 11 points on three three-pointers.
Taiwan Mobile's Ryan Wright won the 2012 SBL slam-dunk title Saturday with a pair of powerful and windmill dunks in front of 9,600 fans in the southern port city of Kaohsiung.
Doug Creighton of Pure Youth edged Yulon's Lu Cheng-ju with 19 points to win the title in the three-point shootout finals.
KKL guard Chou Tzu-hua won the skill challenge.
