With the first phase of the men's Asian Cup qualifiers officially kicked off, all teams are going all out to advance. According to the rules of the tournament, the top two teams in each group will qualify directly, while the teams that do not qualify directly will still have a chance to fight for the remaining spots in the battle for third place in the group. Although the Chinese men's basketball team no longer has the hegemony of Asian basketball, the team is still firmly determined to secure the top two spots in the group in order to successfully advance to the next round. The forefront of Chinese football
In the first game, the Chinese men's basketball team easily defeated the relatively weak Mongolian team, laying a good foundation for the subsequent games. After a short break, the soldiers of the Chinese men's basketball team immediately rushed to the away stadium to prepare to face the strongest opponent in the same group - the Japanese team. It is worth noting that in the world-class competition, the Chinese men's basketball team has not lost to the Japanese team for 88 years, which is why the head coach of the Japanese men's basketball team made a bold statement before the game, hoping to break this invincible curse.
However, the situation after the start of the race was unexpected by many. Japan were clearly favoured on their home turf, with some controversial decisions from the referee making the game look unfair. The Japanese team's fierce defensive actions were ignored by the referee, and the Chinese men's basketball players were frequently whistled for fouls even if they were defending normally. The most controversial scene occurred in the second quarter of the first half, when Chinese player Hu Jinqiu was pushed to the baseline by a Japanese defender when he was attacking under the basket, but the referee team did not say anything. Subsequently, Chinese player Zhao Jiwei was roughed by Japanese players when blocking and dismantling, but was whistled for an offensive foul. In the first half, the Chinese men's basketball team was extremely careful on the defensive end, but was still awarded 14 fouls, while the Japanese team was only whistled for 6 fouls.
In this game, the undefeated myth of the Chinese men's basketball team was broken, in addition to the referee's penalty scale, the performance of the team members is also a factor that cannot be ignored. Most of the players didn't live up to expectations, with only Hu Jinqiu performing well, with 23 points, 12 rebounds and one block in both offense and defense. While other players, such as Hu Mingxuan, although they contributed 20 points off the bench, they were not very efficient in scoring. The performance of the teenager Yang Hansen was even more disappointing, he shot 0 of 4 off the bench, scored only 2 points on free throws, and even missed the dunk and sent the opponent to three-point free throws in the game, which once again exposed the problem of the overall competitive level of the CBA.
In the case of the limited overall level of the domestic league, if the Chinese men's basketball team wants to return to the top, it must let more potential players go to overseas high-level leagues to compete. This is also the reason why many fans hope that Yang Hansen can stay in the ocean as soon as possible. Even if you can't win the favor of an NBA team, going to a high-level league such as Europe will be a valuable experience, far more beneficial than staying in the CBA league.