Chen Jianghua had game-high 20 points and five rebounds to lead
CBA's Guangdong Hongyuan youth team past Taiyuan Technology
University 86-68, winning the CUBA vs CBA youth team basketball
tournament in Wuhan on Wednesday.
Point guard Chen nailed the first six points and ignited their
fight back at the second half by dishing out two assists in the
last quarter as Guangdong Hongyuan won its six straight match at
the eight-team event.
"I am really happy to win tonight. We are the only youth team in
the semi-finals, and we proved the best young players in China,"
said Chen.
Guanddong took the command from the very beginning to lead 19-18
in the first quarter, and extended its lead to 38-26 by the end of
the first half.
Taiyuan fought back from the third quarter and cut the deficit
to 59-49 by the end of the third quarter.
Chen, who was regarded as the player that would join NBA star
Yao Ming in the Chinese national team at the 2008 Olympic Games,
stole the ball from Wuhan's guard Sun Zhichao with 20 seconds to go
and made a slum dunk to seal the win.
Zhou Peng contributed 18 points and five rebounds to Guangdong,
While Sun Zhichao led Taiyuan with 15 points and six rebounds.
Earlier in the day, CUBA defending champion Huaqiao University
beat Shandong Science University 74-67 to take the third place.
Jiang Xinxin hit game-high 19 points and seven rebounds to lead
the Huaqiao University team, and teammate Zhang Jiabin added 11
points and seven rebounds. Li Hai scored 13 points and grabbed five
rebounds for Shandong.
In the women's side, Gu Xiaoli made a winning two-point shot,
leading Huazhong Science University team edge the Liaoning youth
team 68-67 to win the title on Tuesday.
The Guangdong youth team nipped the Tianjin Financing University
team 87-85 to place third.
In a bid to improve the standard of Chinese basketball, CBA and
CUBA launched the tournament, which will run through Wednesday.
Four top-ranked teams each in CUBA and CBA took part in the
tournament.
?
(Xinhua News Agency?January 5, 2006)