China players celebrate after winning the title yesterday. Picture: Jayaram
China’s quest, and success, for their 11th gold medal, and third in a row, in the FIBA Asia U-18 Championship history yesterday was marked by a splendid and superb tutorial in transition basketball.
Though their mainstay, Zhou Qi, sat out for the better part of the title clash, the defending champions won by a comprehensive margin (66-48), and in the process gave Iran a lesson on speed and dominance.
Qi, the most accomplished player in the entire competition, made his appearance on court only at the beginning of the second quarter. But by then China had ascertained their dominance on the proceedings by racing ahead to a double-digit lead.
Much credit for that lead goes to Zou Yuchen, who accounted for 14 of China’s 22 points in the first quarter, including scoring half of the points in China’s searing 16-0 run that helped the East Asian giants break away from the early equal sparring.
Mohamed Yousof Vand ended Iran’s barren run with a slam dunk, but it failed to spark even an iota of a fightback from his side.
Yuchen went on to finish with 15 points, handing over the mantle to Qi, who used his time on the court to finish with a game-high 16 points.
“We came in with a certain plan to win the gold. And I think we executed most of our plans well,” said coach Fan Bin, who won his second Asia U-18 gold in three editions, having helmed them to a similar finish at the 22nd Championship in Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) in 2012.
“It’s very important for the boys to finish with the gold. That provides a lot of boost to their morale in the days to come,” he added. “This team is a work in progress. We do expect them to serve China basketball in the future. But they still have a lot to learn,” he signed off.
Navid Rezaeifar’s 13 points kept Iran afloat, but it was too little too late in the end.Earlier in the bronze medal playoff, a 26-10 run in the third quarter, that included a 12-2 blitz in the first five minutes of the second half, took Korea to a 70-58 win over Chinese Taipei. The win helped Korea book the third and final Asia berth for the 2015 U-19 World Championship, to be played in Greece. China and Iran had already qualified
