Thai team face strong title bid from Koreans
Play
South Korea's basketball stars confirmed their status as a title favourite by registering a second successive win with a 109-62 drubbing of India in the Level I division of 25th Fiba Asia Championship for Women at Bangkok's Thai-Japan Youth Welfare Cent
Having stamped their title ambition by edging defending champions China 72-70 on the opening day of the 12-nation tournament, the Koreans came out firing on all cylinders against opponents who were looking to bounce back after defeat to Taiwan on Sunday.
But the Indians’ lack of squad depth showed, with few players able to score consistently, while South Korea plundered points from every area of the court.
The Indians were further hampered by turnovers, in a one-sided affair that saw the Koreans gifted 34 points by their rival’s mistakes. South Korea also out-rebounded the opposition 26-14 and managed to cash in on their second chances with 14 points.
However, the Indians’ major shortcoming was their bench players, who contributed just six points compared with South Korea’s 74. A measure of the Korean bench’s strength was that the game’s top two scorers, Park Hye-jin (26 points) and Kim Dan-bi (25), were not in the starting line-up.
Having watched his side romp to the win without really hitting top gear, South Korea’s coach We Sung-woo was happy with his team’s form in a game in which all but one of his 12 players had a chance to play.
“After a tough game against China yesterday, we needed to give our main players some rest, and that meant an opportunity for other members in the team to play. They showed they could step into the side,” said We.
Having opened their campaign in style with a 60-41 victory over Uzbekistan, hosts Thailand were due to face old rivals Malaysia in last night’s match in the Level II division before taking on the Philippines today at 6pm.
