Beijing News (Reporter Xu Bangyin) On February 25, the 2025 Men's Basketball Asian Cup Qualifiers Group C match continued, and the Chinese men's basketball team played away against the Japanese men's basketball team. Hu Jinqiu scored 23 points and 13 rebounds, Hu Mingxuan scored 20 points, 73-76, and the Chinese men's basketball team lost to the opponent by 3 points.
In the first round of the Asian preliminaries on February 22, the Chinese men's basketball team successfully defeated Mongolia and Japan defeated **, which was the battle for the top spot in Group C. In the two World Cup qualifiers at the end of November 2021, the Chinese men's basketball team won the Japanese men's basketball team by 49 points in two games.
The lineup of the Chinese men's basketball team is dominated by young players, only Zhao Jiwei, Xu Jie, Hu Jinqiu, and Abdusalam have played in the 2021 World Preliminaries, and Zhao Jiwei, Hu Jinqiu, Hu Mingxuan, Zhu Junlong, Fu Hao, Cui Yongxi and other 6 people participated in the 2023 Men's Basketball World Cup.
The Japanese men's basketball team is almost all the main players, naturalized player Hawkinson and Yuki Kawamura, Yudai Baba, Yuki Tomiyatsu, Shin Eejima and other 8 people helped the team go straight to the Paris Olympics in the 2023 Men's Basketball World Cup, only a few main players such as Yuta Watanabe and Keisei Tominaga were absent. Japan's men's basketball coach Horvath was full of confidence before the game, "Winning this game will be an important start for our journey to the Paris Olympics. ”
Although most of the players have less experience in international competitions than their opponents, and this game is an away game, the Chinese men's basketball team shows a very high desire to win and a strong fighting spirit. At the beginning of the game, the Chinese team once played a 12-0 scoring climax, leading the opponent by 11 points 14-3, and at halftime, the opponent was tied at 38.
In the second half, Japan's outside advantage began to show, while China got into foul trouble, and the home team gradually took the initiative in the second half. In the case of falling behind the score, the Chinese team did not give up, the intensity of the defensive end and the threat of the offensive end did not decrease, and the score difference was always kept in single digits, and the suspense of victory and defeat was maintained until the last moment.
After losing to the Japanese team, the Chinese team ended the first window of the Asian preliminaries with 1 win and 1 loss. According to the schedule of the 2025 Men's Basketball Asian Cup Qualifiers, the next window is scheduled for late November this year, and on November 21 and 24, the Chinese men's basketball team will play against ** and Mongolia successively.
Edited by Wang Chunqiu.