Bangalore was the host again for the second year of the FIBA Asia Championships.  Division A games hosted at Sree Kantaveera Stadium in the heart of the city, Division B games a 25 minutes commute in an auto-rickshaw.  Matchups were key throughout Championships with teams like Taiwan aiming to shoot their way to wins and China pounding the ball inside with their dominant post play.  We’ll recap some of the teams that stood out in Division A & B.

China – dominated inside with their post presence.  This didn’t slow guards down in transition on the fast break as they did a good job making the right play at the right time especially in the final against Japan.  Guards were able to shoot the ball well enough throughout the Championship to give bigs more space to operate inside.

Japan – in my opinion the most exciting team to watch playing at speed and pace with disciplined guard play.  To add to the u18 team from u16 in 2017 was an inside / out post presence which made them harder to guard and helped with the rebounding load on the defensive end. 

Australia – as always disciplined solid guard play and skilled bigs inside makes Australia a hard team to play against.  Surprisingly, they were out-hustled by Korea in their one loss in the Championships.  Australia doesn’t lose often, especially twice and they got the job done the second time around against Korea in the bronze medal game