Text|Liu Liu. In the past week, many parts of the country have ushered in strong winds and cooled down, and it has even snowed heavily in the Northeast, while the basketball enthusiasm of domestic teenagers is constantly "up". On November 29, in Mengzi City, Yunnan Province, the top 16 finals of the women's group of the 2023 National U15 Youth Basketball League came to a successful conclusion, marking the completion of all the men's and women's competitions in the U14, U15, U17, U19, and U21 groups of the National Youth U Series Basketball League (referred to as U Series Events).
The U-Series has been on the road for more than 20 years, and the theme of this year's event is "Up". The theme of "upward" is also fully reflected in league operations, player performance, competition management, business development, visual packaging, broadcast quality, and honor system building.
Zhang Ziyu "Killing the Quartet" and Feng Ao cross-level participation in the U series have many highlights.
The U series is the highest level of youth basketball league in China jointly sponsored by the Chinese Basketball Association and Shenzhen Basketball Sports. The mission of the U series is to cultivate future new forces for Chinese basketball, and it is also the cradle of China's young elite players, and has sent a large number of talents to the national team and domestic high-level professional leagues.
The 2023 U Series events, starting in March 2023, have traveled through many provinces, cities and regions across the country, attracting more than 700 youth basketball teams and more than 8,800 youth basketball players across the country.
The U series is the top youth basketball tournament in China that integrates sports, education and society. It undertakes the mission of developing a youth basketball tournament system, extensively encouraging young people to participate in basketball, and helping the long-term development of basketball in China. According to the data, nearly 30 million people have broadcast the U series events, and the number of on-site spectators has exceeded 100,000 throughout the year, which can effectively prove the great influence of its events.
In the 2023 U-Series competition, the performance of the young players is also remarkable, from the execution of skills and tactics to the display of individual ability, allowing fans to regain confidence in the future of Chinese basketball. Starting from the U14 League Finals, the youngest in the age group, Guangdong One Plus One Club faced the traditional strong team Mingde Huaxing, and finally easily defeated the opponent with a score of 85-58.
This year's U series of events is the first national tour of Guangdong One Plus One Club, but it has shown great strength, in the national top 16 finals, has defeated Shenyang team, Chongqing Youth Men's Basketball Team, Beijing Shougang, Jiangsu team, Mingde Huaxing and other giants, and finally won seven games and seven wins. This national trip not only allowed the young players to get experience, but also showed the achievements of Guangdong basketball youth training in recent years.
The women's group was more suspenseful than the men's match, and the match between Hunan and Jiangsu was not decided until the last second. Jiangsu's Tang Yatong scored a game-high 25 points and 14 rebounds.
Guangdong One Plus One Club won the championship.
In the final of the men's group of the U15 group, Guangdong Experimental High School defeated the strong rival Shanghai Sports School with a score of 96-89, achieving three consecutive championships in this group, and Liu Zhenhe of Guangdong Experimental High School was awarded the Most Valuable Player. On the final stage of the women's group, it was still the Hunan team against the Jiangsu team, and the result was strikingly the same, the Hunan team defeated the opponent again, and it also allowed fans across the country to see the strength of Hunan and Jiangsu Province in women's basketball youth training. Hunan has also produced a number of outstanding women's basketball players, such as Tang Yu in the women's national basketball team.
On the final stage of the U17 group, the Hongyuan team of Guangdong Sports School led by Coach Qu Shaobin won the championship against the Hunan Provincial Team, and Coach Qu Shaobin was unsurprisingly elected as the best coach. In the men's competition from the U14 to U17 groups, the teams from Guangdong Province won all the championships, which shows the high level of youth training in Guangdong Province and the large number of talents in the follow-up. The Hongyuan team in the CBA league can always be among the best in the league, and it is inseparable from the rapid development of young players in Guangdong Province.
The popularity of the finals of the U17 women's group once overshadowed that of the men's group, which was attributed to Zhang Ziyu of the Shandong team. Zhang Ziyu, who was born in 2007, has reached an astonishing height of 2.24 meters, and her static talent in her body is extremely good, and her excellent talent has also helped her "kill all sides" in competitions at the same level. Zhang Ziyu first scored 38 points and 17 rebounds in the semifinals, and then scored 30 points and 21 rebounds in the finals, and he was also awarded the Most Valuable Player.
Zhang Ziyu was awarded the U17 Women's Most Valuable Player.
Starting from the U19 group, it has risen several notches in terms of technical and tactical, physical confrontation and individual ability. The final of the men's group was Xinjiang Guanghui led by Feng Ao and Qu Xiaoyu against the Qingdao team without Yang Hansen. Feng Ao, the "Internet celebrity player" who skipped the grade, also showed excellent basketball IQ and defensive skills, as he himself said, "We must start from defense and create excellent offensive opportunities for my brothers." ”
But the "thigh" of the Xinjiang team was still selected for Qu Xiaoyu of the national youth, through his overturning of the river and the sea on the inside, so that the main inside line of the Qingdao team Chang Haoran left the court early, Qu Xiaoyu also presented violent dunk performances for the fans many times, and finally the Xinjiang team easily defeated the Qingdao team 76-55.
Xinjiang Guanghui U19 player Feng Ao.
In the women's competition, the Shanghai team defeated Beijing Shougang with a difficult score of 61-60, and the two sides were full of firepower from the first second of the game, playing a battle of attack. It wasn't until the last quarter that the Shanghai team opened the score to 5 points, and by the end of the three seconds, the Beijing team chased the difference to 1 point, but the final counterattack failed and unfortunately lost.
U21 is the oldest group in the U-series of events, and as an important competitive platform for cultivating and selecting young Chinese basketball talents, a group of outstanding athletes completed their graduation ceremonies in the U-series events. In the men's competition, the Shanghai team defeated Nanjing Tongxi to win the championship.
U-Series Champion Medal.
Since then, these players will continue to move forward with the U-Series tournament as a starting point, fight in the professional arena, and grow into the mainstay of Chinese basketball.
Yang Hansen, Dai Hao, and Qu Xiaoyu landed in the CBA U series to become the cradle of tomorrow's stars.
In recent years, with the help of top youth basketball leagues such as the U series of events, China's basketball youth training has developed rapidly, and youth basketball events can not only show fans the current level of China's basketball youth players, but also provide a communication platform for youth teams around the world to learn from each other's Xi and learn from each other's strengths, rather than just sticking to the team's intra-team confrontation. At the same time, it also provides a place for top basketball clubs to discover talent.
Just like the slogan of the U-Series tournament, "Up", young players across the country should not only devote themselves to daily training as they get older, but also actively challenge higher-level competitions. In the fierce competition, the individual skills and tactical thinking of the players were refined, and a group of top junior players stood out.
The first is Qingdao's star of hope, Yang Hansen, who represented the team in the U17 and U19 categories in the 2022 season, helping the team win the championship in the U17 category, and also won the Most Valuable Player himself. Then Yang Hansen represented the Chinese team in the U19 Men's Basketball World Cup that ended in July this year, and the Chinese U19 men's basketball team was divided into the "Group of Death" with Spain, France and Canada, and Yang Hansen, as the core of the team, played an average of 29 games per game2 minutes, get 126 points 104 rebounds and 47 assists and 5 blocks, with an efficiency value of 229, and finally selected the best team of this U19 World Cup.
CBA Qingdao Guoxin Haitian player Yang Hansen.
This year, Yang Hansen only played in the first stage of the Under-21 group to help the team advance to the last eight, and his subsequent absence was due to the fact that he had already played with Qingdao's first team in the CBA Summer League, in which Yang started 12 games and averaged 161 point 125 rebounds and 3 blocks, and was selected into the Chinese men's basketball talent pool. According to the CBA broadcast footage, NBA scouts have come to China to play Yang Hansen's game.
At only 18 years old, Yang Hansen is still climbing "upward" in his career, and he is likely to become the new inner pillar of the Chinese men's basketball team in the future, and he may also go to the United States to compete in the NBA.
In addition to Yang Hansen, players such as Feng Ao, Qu Xiaoyu, Wan Menglin, and Dai Hao have all shown good talent in the U-series, and their future "upward" road must first gain a firm foothold in the club's first team, and then move towards the national team and other higher-level international arenas.
Liu Yudong, a member of the Chinese Basketball Hall of Fame, presented the Most Valuable Player trophy to Dai Hao, a player from Shanghai Jiushi.
Compared with directly entering the CBA arena, it is also a very good "upward" channel to go overseas to continue "leveling", such as Zhao Weilun who competed in the Italian league, Zhang Chen Zhifeng, Pang Qingfang and others who competed in the NCAA league, who can continue to absorb the advanced basketball concepts and training methods of basketball powers, and lay a solid foundation for their career path.
The U-Series is just the starting point of the "upward" path for these young talents, and there are still higher honors and more difficult training waiting for them. To borrow a phrase from James Naismith, the father of basketball, players need to be physically stronger, more mindful and more noble to develop "upward".
The innovation of the event system, the construction of the basketball ecosystem, and the improvement of commercial value The U-series events are still "up".
With the rapid growth of the players, the U-series event, which is the highest level of youth basketball league in the country, will also grow together with the young players and explore the upward power together.
In the future, the U-series tournament will continue to innovate in the event system, strive to build a comprehensive and top-level youth basketball event, and provide a high-level event platform for young people. The U series of events should provide young players with a high-quality event platform, a systematic training model, and a complete actual combat competition system, so as to improve the technical level and tactical awareness of players and promote the construction of a high-level echelon of Chinese basketball.
In addition to creating an "upward" career path for young players, the tournament itself also helps coaches and referees develop their careers. Finally, in addition to refining their individual abilities, the U-Series also helps young players shape the right values and worldview, so that they can never give up and be the first team player.
1. Courage to face failure and other qualities.
Finally, the U-Series event should also further enhance its brand awareness and commercial value. For the 2023 season, the official sponsors are Midfield Line, Lanhua, Breakthrough, the official business Ginor and the official digital partner I Olympic Basketball.
In the future, the U series of events will become a league with a unique brand identity system and high recognition, continue to attract high-quality brand sponsorship, improve the service of stakeholders, and provide excellent event experience for teams, players, sponsors, parents, etc.
In the "upward" development plan for the next 10 years, the U series of events should be vigorously publicized and highlighted to highlight the characteristics, key points and highlights of the events. For example, in the youngest U14 group, more attention is paid to cultivating young players' interest in basketball, team spirit and basketball etiquette, while for the U21 group, more emphasis is placed on the highest level of matchups, highlighting the competitiveness and ornamentation.
As a nurturing event, the U series will accompany every young player who loves basketball to grow up and explore upward power together. From December 24 to 31, 2023, the finals of the national "Basketball School Cup" basketball competition will be ushered in, so fans will stay tuned.
Note: The ** used in this article is from the OSPORTS All-Sports and National U-Series Youth Basketball League.