After five days of action we have passed the half-way point of the tournament. I have been able to see all the teams play more than once now, so I feel comfortable talking about the squads beyond a recitation of box scores (way to go Asia-basket). If you are interested in box score numbers you can find those on this link.

In years past the William Jones Cup has been a mixed bag of teams in terms of talent level, usually including some ‘B’ teams and some club teams from Australia or the US. While there is still a disparity in talent level between the teams this year, almost all of the teams have brought their ‘A’ squad in preparation for the FIBA Asia Championship coming up at the end of September (Japan being the notable exception). There have been some great games and some strong performances by teams and players alike. This is by far the best collection of teams I have seen in my five years of watching this event.

After five days the standings are as follow:

1) South Korea 5-0
2) Taiwan 4-1
3) Jordan 3-2
3) Philippines (Smart Gilas) 3-2
3) Iran 3-2
4) Japan 2-3
5) UAE 0-5
5) Malaysia 0-5

While South Korea sits at the top of the leaderboard at this time with a perfect record, I cannot say unequivocally that they are the best squad here. And that is not necessarily a knock on South Korea. What South Korea has shown is that they play with a consistency that is rare among Asian national teams.

Perhaps because life is busy I will take the easy way out and throw out a few observations that I have made during the tournament so far.

1)      Marcus Douthit is the best big man playing for an Asian national team. This statement probably will anger some other fans. Koreans will argue that Ha Seung-Jin is the best, but seeing his flat-footed performance against Iran showed how glaring a weakness his lack of athleticism is. Hamed Haddadi from Iran is usually discussed as the best big man from Asia. Haddadi is massive, and a force inside, but Douthit showed in their match-up how much of a liability Haddadi’s lack of quickness is. When Haddadi is on the floor, he gets points in the paint, but in turn clogs up his team’s offensive movements. While I am a fan of Taiwan’s Tseng Wen-ting, he just do not have the strength to handle a player of Douthit or Haddadi’s size in the post. For the teams that are not here, Lebanon has added Loren Woods, and China has Yi Jianlian and Wang Zhizhi. Woods is solid, but is not an intimidating factor on the offensive end. Wang is getting old, and Yi struggles to guard stronger players (well-documented during his NBA career). If Douthit plays to the level he has shown against Taiwan and Iran, the competition better take notice.

2)      Japanese basketball is going through a period of uncertainty and transition that extends beyond the JBL and bj league debacle. While there are many big name players not on the Jones Cup squad, it is hard to rationalize why you would be testing out young players one month before the FIBA Asia Championships. Every other team in this event is playing as close to full strength as they possibly can.

3)      Asia Basketball Update favorite Jet Chang can score at the international level. I have heard people mention that they are unsure how his skills translate outside of the DII world. Jet has received increasing in each game, culminating in his performance last night against the UAE. Taiwan was extremely sluggish after their emotional victory over Jordan the night before, but Jet poured in 20 points in the second half to spark the Taiwanese squad. In 21 minutes of action per game he is averaging 13.8 points.

4)      Of the nine best teams in the region only China, Lebanon, and Qatar are not here. Unfortunately for Iran, Taiwan, and Qatar, their grouping at the Asia Championship will prevent one of the teams from progressing to the Quarterfinal round. I predict the only drama over the first few days of that tournament will be in Group B.

5)      It may not be a real FIBA event, but after watching the drama in Jordan-Taiwan game it is clear that the regional rivalries are really heating up. Watching Zaid Abbas kick a chair 20 feet and the look of fear in the Taiwanese referee’s eyes was the highlight of the tournament for me so far!

Four more days of action coming up. Hopefully over the weekend I can take some time to edit some video clips to share some of the action with you.

Final Random Thought: There are three BYU-Hawaii alum playing in this tournament (Jet Chang, Wu Tai-hao, and Asi Taulava). If Yuta Tabuse was here it would be four. Pretty amazing the connections the Seasiders have developed in the region.

In a disastrous three days the hopes that one of the three Asian teams would make a run at the U-19 FIBA World Championship were quickly put to rest. Finishing with a combined record 1-8 record in the initial group play, China, South Korea, and Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) will continue on in the “Classification Round” to determine 13th through 16th place. These three teams came in with varying levels of expectation, but in the end have all found themselves in the same place.

Before I begin the recap for each team, I must say how disappointing it is that the only games broadcast over the first three games of the tournament were of the host-country Latvian team. If FIBA’s mission is to create a world-wide competition with passionate fans they failed completely. Really, I watched online games broadcast from gyms in rural Colorado and Wyoming this year, how can FIBA (or is it Latvia) not ensure that every game is available to fans?

China

The Chinese team came in with the most confidence and the highest expectations of the three teams. With a FIBA ranking of 16, the Chinese came in expecting to get out of the preliminary stage of the tournament. Unfortunately for them, Egypt rose to the occasion to play inspired basketball against the Chinese and stole the game in double overtime. In a tournament with few other upsets, that loss ended the Chinese team’s hopes for advancing.

Individually a few of the Chinese players were able to produce solid stat lines. The most famous player on the team, Guo Ailun played sparingly in the final game, but averaged 19 ppg, 3.5 rpg, and 4.5 apg in the first two contests. Unfortunately for Guo, the 12 turnovers in those first two games take away from the impressiveness of the previous numbers. Actually, the entire Chinese squad struggled to control the ball and averaged over 18 turnovers per match during the first three days.

Along with Guo, the other bright spots for the Chinese team were the play of Zhai Xiaochuan and Wang Zirui. Zhai led the team in both scoring and rebounding posting averages of 16.3 ppg and 7.3 rpg. At 6’8” Zhai has really nice size for the Small Forward position. Wang is lesser known than some of his teammates, but showed that that should not be the case. The Zhejiang Guangsha junior team point guard finished with a well-rounded stat line of 12.7 ppg, 5.7 rpg, and 3.7 apg.

South Korea

The Korean squad came in with very little press, just as you would expect for a team that was not ranked highly, but was also not considered to be one of the weakest squads (Taiwan and Tunisia filled that role). As such, the Koreans came out and shocked most people with their play over the three days. On the first day the Koreans took a lead into the last minute against the Canadians, only to squander it on turnovers and fouls.

After getting demolished by the Lithuanian boys on Day 2, the Koreans came out with the biggest upset of the tournament by defeating the Croatian team. While this win is impressive, and the Koreans should be congratulated, it needs to be noted that the Croatians sat their starting PG and C for the entire game. Korea and China will go head to head on Monday, July 4th.

Taiwan

The Taiwanese team came to the tournament marked as the “small fish” or “last man picked.” Their coach, Huang Wan-lung did nothing to dispel this when he was quoted as saying “I tell my guys let's make friends here because basketball is just a game so we need to enjoy ourselves and makes friends amongst the other players and coaches.” Somehow I do not think that the Latvian team they faced on the first day were told to have fun and make friends by their coach before the game. With no pressure on them, the Taiwanese squad lived up to expectations . . . and lost all three of their games.

The problem for the Taiwanese was truly one of size. Their average height was over 6 cm shorter than the next shortest team. It is no surprise that they had difficulty rebounding against the taller international competition. In the game against Latvia the Taiwanese were outrebounded 57-17. The Latvians were able to grab 24 offensive rebounds against their over-matched opponents. The trio of Hung Kang-chiao, Chen Ying-chun, and Hu Long-mao played relatively well showing flashes of the basketball talent there is in Taiwan. Watch for those three to make their way on to the Senior National Team in the next few years.

What’s next?

In a few hours the Koreans and Chinese will face off and the Taiwanese will go up against the Tunisian squad. While there is no way to move above 13th, we can only hope that the teams all play to their fullest potential to showcase a little of the talent and potential present here in Asia.

Sorry that I am a little slow to finish off my coverage of the event in Nanjing. So here is a super post covering Days 4 and 5.

Day 4

Mongolia vs. Hong Kong

The 5/6 game is interesting only because it matched up the two teams who really had no chance in this tournament. While the results from earlier in the week would have suggested the Mongolian squad was more competitive, the Hong Kong squad showed that they do have some talent (something a -148 point differential for the first two games did not imply). Going into the half Mongolia was up by 2 points, but Hong Kong came out hot in the third and went up by ten. In the end Hong Kong was able to hold on for the 87-83 victory.

South Korea vs. Taiwan

Taiwan started the game slowly for the third time in three games. Unfortunately for them the South Koreans are a veteran squad and knew how to hold on to the lead. South Korea ended the game on top with a 69-61 victory. For Taiwan, Yulon’s Lu Cheng-ju was the high point man with 15 points.

China vs. Japan

Does beating China’s B team really matter? The feeling among fans and followers of Asian basketball is that the Chinese obviously cared very little about the result of the tournament, as they are assured a spot in the September tournament, and have home court advantage no matter what. Japan played a great game, and were able to make the Chinese turn the ball over much more than they usually do. In a somewhat surprising ending the Japanese came out on top with a 72-62 win.

Day 5

China vs. Taiwan

While China may have cared very little about the outcome of the previous game, any match between these two political foes will lead to a passionate game and a full effort from both squads. Chinese guard Meng Duo ended up being the difference maker in this game as his lights out shooting in the 3rd sparked a devastating 30-11 third quarter. The Taiwanese squad were unable to mount a comeback and the scored ended up a lopsided 87-53. Both teams are missing key players, but it looks like when the Chinese players are out to win they are going to be extremely difficult to beat.

South Korea vs. Japan

Old rivals Japan and South Korea met for the gold, and the right for top seed coming out of the East Asia region. It was a game of runs as South Korea stormed ahead to a double digit lead in the first quarter, only to let Japan come right back with a big second period. Korea finally blew open the game in the final period, finishing with an 89-73 victory for the gold.

In the end the tournament left me with more questions than answers as to the quality of the four teams that will be advancing. South Korea and Japan brought pretty complete rosters to the event, so we have a good sense of what they are capable of. It has been widely discussed by me and others that the Chinese team was their ‘B’ unit. Which of these players will get a chance to play in the September tournament? Taiwan remains the biggest wild card though. They played this tournament without their best center (Tseng Wen-ting), one of their top forwards (Tien Lei), their premier point guard (Lin Chih-chieh), and without their best young player (Jet Chang). It looks like the first three will be available to play, but with his commitments in the US it is unlikely Jet will be able to play in the September tournament. This is truly a shame as he showed in last year’s Stankovic Cup that he could score against top tier international competition.

Next up for all you Asia basketball fans is the SEABA Championship next week in Jakarta. Three more teams will ultimately gain entrance to the September tournament in China.

Sunday saw the end of round robin play. China defeated South Korea 61-54 in the less meaningful of the two games as both teams had already qualified for the next round.

The other match-up was more important though as the winner of the Japan-Mongolia game would not only advance to the semi-finals, but also would qualify for the FIBA Asia Championship in September. Japan came out strong in the 1st quarter and built an 11 point lead. While Mongolia fought hard throughout the game they were unable to crack Japan's lead. The end score was 94-73 in favor of Japan.

While the four teams that were supposed to advance all did, to me the biggest news of this tournament has been the competitiveness of the Mongolian squad. While the four "big boys" of this tournament all played at less than full strength, the fact that Mongolia was not blown out in their two matches is noteworthy in my opinion. It should be interesting to see if they treat their coming game against Hong Kong with as much pride and passion as they have the last two.

On Tuesday Japan will face China and Taiwan will go up against South Korea. China should handle Japan while the Taiwan-South Korea match-up should be a great game. In the end though, I think the winner of this tournament will end up being the team that places the most value on winning it all. Will the teams keep focusing on giving young players experience, or will they choose to play the veterans to ensure a higher seed in the Asia Championships?

Day 2 of this “tournament” unfolded as predicted. In the first game of the day the Mongolian squad came out strong and actually had a lead at half-time. But today was not a day for upsets as Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) took control in the 3rd and cruised to a 14 point victory 85-71.

In the second game Hong Kong was once again overmatched and overpowered. China had a 28-5 lead after the first quarter and never looked back, winning 104-43 in the end.

Of the three spots open for the FIBA Asia Championship two were secured today. Tomorrow’s match-up between Japan and Mongolia will determine who the fourth representative from the region will be in September (China has an automatic entry). The Semi-Finals and Finals will be played on Tuesday and Wednesday. Winning the tournament could have positive implications for seeding in the September tournament, so we should hopefully see some continued effort in the final two rounds.

In what will perhaps be the least suspenseful tournament ever, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, and Hong Kong are meeting in Nanjing over the next three days in the East Asia Basketball Championship. This tournament is a qualifying tournament for the FIBA Asia Championship in September. As the host, China has already qualified. Thus, the top three finishers besides China will get an invite to play in September. It is pretty easy to tell which two teams will not be going further. In the first game of the tournament South Korea defeated Hong Kong 134-47. Hong Kong will need to defeat China by 88 points tomorrow in order to advance . . . not happening.

The second game of the day was actually a great game with Taiwan pulling out a narrow 75-74 victory over Japan on last second free throws. Now Mongolia stands in the way of these two teams.

But my favorite ridiculous subplot of the whole tournament is that China filled their team with some suspended players so that they could get their suspension out of the way before the Asia Championship. http://www.niubball.com/2011/05/cba-announces-12-man-roster-for-fiba-east-asia-championship/ Trust China to find a bureaucratic loophole in a FIBA suspension.