Led by 9-year JBL veteran forward Charles O'Bannon (198-G/F-75, college: UCLA) and his 35 points and 9 rebounds, the Toyota Alvark won its first game of the season by defeating the Mitsubishi Diamond Dolphins 75-67 on Sunday (Oct. 5th). Toyota not only got a dominating performance from O'Bannon, but they also a solid output from longtime JBL veteran F Michael Takahashi, who contributed to the win with 14 pts/13 reb.
Led by 9-year JBL veteran forward Charles O'Bannon (198-G/F-75, college: UCLA) and his 35 points and 9 rebounds, the Toyota Alvark won its first game of the season by defeating the Mitsubishi Diamond Dolphins 75-67 on Sunday (Oct. 5th). Toyota not only got a dominating performance from O'Bannon, but they also a solid output from longtime JBL veteran F Michael Takahashi, who contributed to the win with 14 pts/13 reb. Toyota had started out the season 0-2 after losing their first 2 games of the season to Hitachi last weekend. Mitsubishi, who now stands at 1-2 just like Toyota, was led by F Jun Uzawa with 16 pts/7 reb and F Carl Thomas with 14 pts/10 reb in the loss.
In other action on Sunday, Rera Kamuy Hokkaido also won its first game of the season by hanging on for a close 74-70 victory over the Link Tochigi Brex. Hokkaido was paced by 38-year old veteran G Takehiko Orimo, who had 19 points on 4-for-8 shooting from 3-point range, and C Tyler Newton, who played 35 minutes and had 18 pts/12 reb. Tochigi now falls to 0-3 with this loss. Tochigi experimented with a new starting lineup with C James Cripe starting his first game of the season and F Randy Orr starting the game on the bench. Cripe ended up with 13 pts/10 reb in 30 min of play while G Takuya Kawamura, currently the league leader in points, finished with 15 points. Tochigi got a solid effort from PG Yuta Tabuse, who scored only 2 points but contributed with 5 assists, and C Shunsuke Ito, who came off the bench to put up 14 pts/9 reb.
Also on Sunday, Aisin, the defending JBL champions, got a putback from new import F Daryan Selvy with only 40 seconds left in the game to break a 59-59 deadlock and carry the Sea Horses to a 61-59 win over the Hitachi Sunrockers. With the victory, Aisin now goes to 2-1 to move into a 3-way tie for 2nd place in the JBL standings along with Hitachi and Toshiba. C J.R. Sakuragi put up 16 pts/7 reb while F David Young had 12 points to lead Aisin while Hitachi got 12 points apiece from F Joji Takeuchi and F Tyler Smith.
In a batlle of unbeaten teams, the Panasonic Trians held on for a 67-66 victory over the Toshiba Brave Thunders to spoil Toshiba's home opener on Friday night (Oct. 3rd) at Kawasaki's Todoroki Arena to move to 3-0 in the JBL's 2008-09 regular season's 2nd week. Toshiba, which had also been 2-0, now falls to 2-1.
In a batlle of unbeaten teams, the Panasonic Trians held on for a 67-66 victory over the Toshiba Brave Thunders to spoil Toshiba's home opener on Friday night (Oct. 3rd) at Kawasaki's Todoroki Arena to move to 3-0 in the JBL's 2008-09 regular season's 2nd week. Toshiba, which had also been 2-0, now falls to 2-1. F/C Jerald Honeycutt (205-F/C-74, college: Tulane), who hit a game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer to lift Panasonic over Hokkaido last week, once again played hero as he scored 20 points off the bench on 3-for-9 shooting from 3-point range to go along with 9 rebounds in only 19 minutes of play. Super-quick PG Hiroyuki Kinoshita also chipped in with 15 points while F Ace Custis contributed with 10 points and 11 rebounds. Toshiba mounted a furious rally late in the game to come within 1 point, but were able to overtake the Trians. Toshiba was led by 2nd-year swingman Shohei Kikuchi who scored 20 points while new import Cory Violette had 10 points and 12 boards in the losing effort.
Notes: Each team in the JBL will only play 1 game this weekend. There are no games scheduled for Saturday (Oct. 4th). The other 6 teams will play on Sunday (Oct. 5th).
The 2008-09 JBL regular season got underway on Friday (9/26) with the Aisin Sea Horses defeating the Mitsubishi Diamond Dolphins 65-55 while the Hitachi Sunrockers upset perennial powerhouse Toyota 101-85 in the biggest surprise of the weekend. All eyes, though, were on the Link Tochigi Brex home opener on Friday night as it marked the return to Japan and the JBL of superstar PG Yuta Tabuse (175-G-80, college: BYU-Hawaii).
The 2008-09 JBL regular season got underway on Friday (9/26) with the Aisin Sea Horses defeating the Mitsubishi Diamond Dolphins 65-55 while the Hitachi Sunrockers upset perennial powerhouse Toyota 101-85 in the biggest surprise of the weekend. All eyes, though, were on the Link Tochigi Brex home opener on Friday night as it marked the return to Japan and the JBL of superstar PG Yuta Tabuse (175-G-80, college: BYU-Hawaii). Tabuse had 11 points and 4 assists but was unable to lift the Brex to victory as they lost to the Toshiba Brave Thunders 82-66. Toshiba's offense was led by newcomer Cory Violette who finished with 26 points and 12 rebounds in his JBL debut.
On Saturday, the 27th, Mitsubishi was able to split the weekend series with Aisin by beating the Sea Horses by a score of 72-61. Mitsubishi was led by F Takuya Sato who poured in 17 points to go along with his 7 rebounds. C J.R. Sakuragi, the former UCLA star known as J.R. Henderson and now in his 8th season in Japan, had 21 pts and 7 boards for Aisin in the losing effort. In other games on Saturday, Hitachi once again beat Toyota, but it took a buzzer beater by PG Kei Igarashi to decide the game which ended with a score of 63-60. The Panasonic Trians won their season opener at home by thumping the Rera Kamuy Hokkaido by a score of 97-74. In the 2nd game of the weekend series, Tabuse's Tochigi Brex was once again unable to beat Toshiba as the Brave Thunders hung on for a 79-69 victory despite a 36-point effort by swingman Takuya Kawamura on 8-14 shooting from 3-point range. Tabuse finished the game with 6 points and 6 assists but had 5 turnovers.
In the only game played on Sunday (9/28), the Panasonic Trians got by Hokkaido by a 68-66 margin to complete the 2-game sweep. Pansonic was paced by veteran SG Atsushi Ohno's 18 points while 4th-year import C Jerald Honeycutt contributed to the win with 13 pts and 7 rebounds. 2nd-year C Tyler Newton had 20 pts and 8 boards in the losing effort.
Notes: The best import debuts of the new season came from the aforementioned Cory Violette and C Adam Parada of Mitsubishi, who had 22 pts/13 reb in Saturday's loss to Aisin, and F Lamar Rice of Hitachi, who had 22 pts/10 reb off the bench in Saturday's win over Toyota. In addition to his 26 pts/12 reb effort on Friday, Violette also had 19 pts/13 reb on Saturday to lead Toshiba to a 2-game sweep over Tochigi.
Yuta Tabuse played in his first JBL game since the 2002-03 season when he was with the Toyota Alvark. His Tochigi debut in Utsunomiya on Friday night drew a crowd
Swingman Alpha Bangura, who spent the past 2 season with the Aisin Sea Horses before being let go in March, has signed with Sagesse in Lebanon for the 2008-09 season. The mercurial Bangura spent 2 productive seasons in Japan with Aisin and helped Aisin win the JBL title last season.
Meanwhile, former Rera Kamuy Hokkaido F Jawad Williams (204-F-83, college: N.Carolina) has been invited to camp with his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers.
Swingman Alpha Bangura, who spent the past 2 season with the Aisin Sea Horses before being let go in March, has signed with Sagesse in Lebanon for the 2008-09 season. The mercurial Bangura spent 2 productive seasons in Japan with Aisin and helped Aisin win the JBL title last season.
Meanwhile, former Rera Kamuy Hokkaido F Jawad Williams (204-F-83, college: N.Carolina) has been invited to camp with his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers. The former Tar Heel great spent only 1 season in the JBL and was 2nd in the league in scoring at 24.7 ppg before returning to the U.S. to play for the Cavaliers' summer league team in the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas in July. According to sources around the the JBL, Hokkaido wanted Williams back for another season but the 6-7 forward apparently rejected Hokkaido's offer in order to give the NBA another shot. He previously went to camp with the Los Angeles Clippers but failed to make the roster.
Another 1 year JBL import, F Jamar Smith, has signed with Fastweb CM in Italy's 2nd Division for the upcoming season. The easygoing Smith spent last season with the Toshiba Brave Thunders and was unstoppable force inside at times. The former Maryland star has played in Israel and Greece and went to camp with the San Antonio Spurs in 2006.
Tyler Smith - Japan Blog 2 (Hitachi Sunrockers - JBL)
Food is something that can be very similar in some countries, and totally opposite in others. When I was in Holland last season, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was unheard of. In Uruguay, I tried a few things… BEFORE I knew what it was. Cow's blood included.
A couple weeks ago here in Japan, I found out what is common to eat for breakfast. Fish. Now, I'm not a big fish guy, but a little salmon now and then is ok. However, I had NEVER heard of fish being a breakfast food.
Food is something that can be very similar in some countries, and totally opposite in others. When I was in Holland last season, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was unheard of. In Uruguay, I tried a few things… BEFORE I knew what it was. Cow's blood included.
A couple weeks ago here in Japan, I found out what is common to eat for breakfast. Fish. Now, I'm not a big fish guy, but a little salmon now and then is ok. However, I had NEVER heard of fish being a breakfast food. When I roll out of bed in the morning, flounder is not the first thing that comes to mind. Nevertheless, many of my teammates don't think twice about it. Go get em fellas. I'll be over here with my Corn Flakes.
Our team is coming together nicely. We had 2 exhibition games this week against the Korean Champions, Dongbu Promy. They are a very strong team with 2 really talented Americans, Okosa Reggie (206-F/C-80, agency: Passing Lane, college: La Salle) and White Wendell (198-G-84, college: UNLV). Fortunately, we played pretty well overall in both games and we were able to win twice.
Everyone on our team contributed nicely and I think we played with a lot of confidence which is great to see early in the season. We even had a nice crowd for the 2nd game and it was really fun to have the fans behind us. Our goal is to give them plenty to cheer about during the season.
The games were a very good test for us and I think one advantage we had over Dongbu Promy is that we have had a little more practice time together as a team. Look for them to be right at the top again in the KBL. We will be working hard to try and do the same in the JBL. And as much as I will be trying my best to fit into our team system and the Japanese culture, I think I will be sticking with my cereal and eggs for breakfast.
Paralympics: Germany beats Japan for 5th-6th place game of wheelchair basketball
by Eurobasket News - Sep 15, 2008
BEIJING, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Germany's victory over Japan in the classification game sent them into the play-off for 5th-6th place against Israel on Monday at the National Indoor Stadium.
German forward Dirk Passiwan and center Dirk Kohler-Lenz combined for 53 points to lead Germany in a 71-57 win over Japan.
'We lost to Japan in the preliminary, but this time our defence and shooting were better. We pressed them more so we could shoot more.
BEIJING, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Germany's victory over Japan in the classification game sent them into the play-off for 5th-6th place against Israel on Monday at the National Indoor Stadium.
German forward Dirk Passiwan and center Dirk Kohler-Lenz combined for 53 points to lead Germany in a 71-57 win over Japan.
'We lost to Japan in the preliminary, but this time our defence and shooting were better. We pressed them more so we could shoot more. Our big center (Dirk Kohler-Lenz) also played very well. All these things are very important, and it's great for us to win the game,' said the game leading scorer Passiwan. Germany lost to Japan in a 56-58 thriller in a preliminary game of group A, but a 3-2 record for Germany made them rank ahead of Japan's 2-3 result in preliminaries.
Germany maintained a steady offensive momentum throughout the game, but overpowered Japan in the fourth quarter in which they outscored the opposition 22-14.
Germany also gained 14 points from Japan's 12 turnovers.
Japan's center Rao Fujimoto scored 20 points for his team, but only one other Japanese player scored in the double digits.
Germany advanced to the classification play-off game for 5th-6th place, against Israel, on Tuesday at the National Indoor Stadium.
Courtesy of http://www.xinhuanet.com/
Australia downs Japan into semifinals in wheelchair basketball
by Eurobasket News - Sep 13, 2008
Australian center Brad Ness and forward Justin Eveson led Australia's scoring drive in their 72-52 win over Japan in a quarterfinal game on Saturday at the National Indoor Stadium.
Australia maintained an aggressive offence throughout the game, scoring 52 points in the paint and 18 second chance points.
'They (Japan) played hard, converting about fifty percent of their shots, so we had to shut that down.
Australian center Brad Ness and forward Justin Eveson led Australia's scoring drive in their 72-52 win over Japan in a quarterfinal game on Saturday at the National Indoor Stadium.
Australia maintained an aggressive offence throughout the game, scoring 52 points in the paint and 18 second chance points.
'They (Japan) played hard, converting about fifty percent of their shots, so we had to shut that down. You have to believe in yourself,' said Ness, who scored the game's highest of 18 points and grabbed 14 rebounds.
'Whether it's Germany or Britain (in semifinals), we match them both quite well. We just have to continue as we have been going.
'Germany plays like us, but they might not quite have the height to match us. Britain beat the U.S., so they have shown what they are made of,' added Ness.
Three Australian players scored in the double digits. Eveson pulled down 17 points as the second scorer of the game.
As the fourth quarter progressed, Japan missed several shots, including two three-pointer attempts in close succession.
None of the Japanese players scored in double digit
