 South Korea’s Yang Dong-geun, center, shoots over Japan’s Takeuchi Kosuke during the East Asia Basketball Championship in Nanjing, China’s Jiangsu Province, Thursday. South Korea beat Japan 89-73. / AFP-Yonhap |
The South Korea basketball team defended the East Asia Basketball Championship title beating Japan in Nanjing, China, Thursday.
The Korean team, led by the manager of the current KBL champions KCC Egis Hur Jae, lifted the trophy with an 89-73 win.
Yang Dong-geun of Ulsan Mobis, who was named the Most Valuable Player of the competition, sank 26 points with six assists to attain victory.
This success means the team qualifies for the Asia Championships, scheduled for September in China. The winner of that tournament will qualify for the London 2012 Olympics.
Starting with Yang’s 3-pointer at the end of the third quarter, the Koreans made a flurry of successful shots to widen the gap in the score.
With a 70-62 lead, the team secured 10 unanswered points to take a firm grasp of the match.
Kang Byung-hyun scored 20 with six rebounds and Cho sung-min contributed 19 points.
Hur will recall the national team members on July 1 in preparation for the William Jones Cup to be held in Taiwan in August.
In the third-place game China ran out easy winners against Taiwan with a final score of 87-53.
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