Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Taiwan returns to final eight in Asian Men's Basketball Championship

Taipei, July 30 (CNA) Taiwan Men's basketball national team defeated Hong Kong 98-81 Monday to wrap up the preliminary round of the 2007 Asian Men's Basketball Championship and advance to the quarterfinal round for the first time in six years.

Taiwan finished with two wins and one loss in the round-robin Group D preliminaries, which was led by undefeated South Korea. Taiwan and South Korea advanced to the quarterfinal stage of the biennial tournament, which is being held in Tokushima, Japan.

It was not easy for Taiwan to make it this far, playing without injured starters Tien Lei and Tsun Wen-ting.

This is the first time since 2001, when Taiwan ranked 7th place, that Taiwan men's basketball team made it past the first round. Taiwan fell to 11th place in 2003 and had a 9th place finish in 2005.

In the quarterfinal round that also adopts a single round-robin format, Taiwan was placed in the same bracket with three West Asia teams: Iran, Qatar and Lebanon. South Korea, Japan, Jordan and Kazakhstan were in the other bracket.

The 2007 Asian Men's Basketball Championship is the qualifying tournament of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The winner of the tournament will win the lone Asian seat in the 12-team men's basketball event. Host country China is automatically guaranteed a spot in every event.

In the victory over Hong Kong, center Wu Tai-hao had a game-high 24 points. Forward Lin Chih-chieh followed with 23 points and Chen Hsin-an added 17 points and 7 rebounds.

Taiwan beat Syria, 90-66, and lost to South Korea, 85-70, in the first two preliminary games.

China opted to send its second national team to Tokushima since it did not need to play for a seat in the Olympics. However the Chinese embarrassingly crashed out of the tournament with three straight losses, which has been the biggest surprise of the tournament so far.