Japan thump Hong Kong

Heavyweights Japan and reigning champions China continued their impressive runs and recorded comfortable victories in their respective Group B games in Division A of the FIBA Under-16 Women’s Asia Cup at the Sree Kanteerava Indoor Stadium here on Monday.

Japan powered past Hong Kong 113-36 while China prevailed convincingly 89-28 over Thailand.

Earlier in the morning, New Zealand shrugged off their opening loss, with a 74-44 drubbing of South Korea in Group A.

Captain Charlisse Trinity Leger-Walker top-scored with 17 points and collected nine rebounds for New Zealand. Sharne Pupuke-Robati also contributed 11 points.

For South Korea, Dayeon Lee scored 11 points.

Australia showed why they are the title-favourites with a fine 88-60 victory over Chinese Taipei in the other Group A tie. The game saw five Australia player reach double figures.

Georgia Amoore starred with 18 points for the Aussies while Isabel Leigh Palmer (15), Last-Tear Poa (15), Nnenna Agnes Emma-Nnopu (11) and Shyla Jade Heal (11) also made valuable contributions.

Skipper Chia-Jung Lin claimed a game-high 19 points for Chinese Taipei.

Iran to compete

In a separate development, FIBA granted Iran permission to compete in the event after they received the membership fee, which was due for the last one and half years.

“Yes. Its simple logic, isn’t it? If they did not play initially for a reason and they’re playing now, then that is what has changed,” FIBA executive director Hagop Khajirian said on Monday.

“The fee was paid before the game,” he added. Iran’s participation was cancelled on Saturday.

The Asian side was scheduled to play India in their opening Division B, Group A game. It was later revised and they faced Nepal instead at the Koramangala Indoor Stadium on Monday. Iran won 89-32.

Iran coach Elahe Darestane admitted such occurrences do not fare well for the team. “It’s hard for the girls. They are too young to get into all these complications. But since we had been practising, there was no impact on our performance.”

Iran will take on India on Tuesday with their last group encounter against Sri Lanka being rescheduled to Wednesday.


Results: Division A: Group A: New Zealand: 74 (Charlisse Trinity Leger-Walker 17, Sharne Pupuke-Robati 11, Isabelle Cook 10) bt South Korea: 44 (Dayeon Le 10); Australia: 88 (Georgia Amoore 18, Isabel Leigh Palmer 15, Last-Tear Poa 15, Nnenna Agnes Emma-Nnopu 11, Shyla Heal 11 ) bt Chinese Taipei: 60 (Chia-Jung Lin 19, Ko-wei Hsu 16, Yueh-Ti Wang 11).

Group B: Japan: 113 (Aika Hirashita 22, Maika Mura 14, Sakura Noguchi 14, Yua Emura 12, Misa Hayashi 11) bt Hong Kong: 36; China: 89 (J Wan 12, M Guo 11, K Huang 11, S Yang 11) bt Thailand: 28.

Division B: Group A: Iran: 89 (Rojin Talakoub 17, Mozdeh Nazari 15, Maryam Shirazi 11) bt Nepal 32.

Group B: Kazakhstan 50 (Liya Umerova 11) lt to Malaysia: 64 (Hong Siew Yap 18, Tricia Ng 12, Xin Su Tang 12).