FIBA Asia U16 Championship: China Overpowered South Korea taking home Gold

China U16 became back to back Champion

          China took charge early on, and then played to their opponents to languidly make their way to a 92-52 win and thus the gold medal for the second successive time. 

      
        There was an air of the inevitable as Korea lined up against China for the gold medal game on Friday. Coach Kim Dongsoo had done his homework and his boys looked sturdier than ever in the competition to slow down the pace of the game.

         Zhou Qi as to be expected led all scorers with a tournament-high 43 points – 16 of them coming when China opened he floodgates in the second quarter. A 9-0 run with an all-round scoring pattern midway through the first quarter set the ball rolling for the Chinese dominance.

        “We tried hard,” said Kim Dongsoo. “There’s no doubt on that. We definitely didn’t lose for want of effort. But then when the opposition is definitely better we can only look for positive things to take from this defeat,” he said. “That way if you see, these boys will take a lot of experience of playing against such good player. That we lost is only a step in the learning process for our team,” he added. Heo Hoon stood like a beacon for Korea with his 19 points.

The Score:
CHINA (92) - ZHOU Qi 43, YU Dehao 11, HENG Yif Eng 10, GUO Xiaopeng 9, YAN Haoxin 9, ZHAO Jiwei 6, LIU Kaiqi 2, LAI Junhao 2.

SOUTH KOREA (52) - HEO Hoon 19, LEE Woojung 8, KIM Gimin 6, KIM Gookchan 5, SHIN Mincheol 5, PARK Intae 3, KOH Haengseok 2, WON Jonghoon 2, KIM Minki 1, KIM Yun 1.