WCBA 3/2008 - Bayi Telecom 71, Beijing 63

Beijing (1-2) thought that a home game could turn things around for their season, but Bayi Telecom (3-0) remained determined and pulled away in the fourth quarter to remain undefeated in WCBA play. Bayi Telecom has won three WCBA championships and it looks like they'll remain a tough team.

The boxscore for the game is here. No writeup yet, but I'm sure we'll have one soon.

It turned out that with the time difference, most WCBA games take place in the morning. When you get to the site, you can see the scores updated but there's no "live update" of boxscores like the WNBA has. Furthermore, the WCBA site is sluggish - I suppose that's from all the Chinese fans of women's basketball waiting for their fix. As I watched part of the live update - while the site was up - the score was tight in the high forties before Bayi Telecom seemed to pull away.

Part of the problem for Beijing was their lousy shooting - 34 percent. Bayi Telecom shot 47 percent...or at least, I think they did. They also outrebounded Beijing 33-27, and both visited the line more often and hit more free throws.

So how come Bayi Telecom only won by eight points? Bayi Telecom had more turnovers (24-19) but I don't see that making up for a 13 percent shooting differentional. The only thing I can conclude was hat Beijing wasted a lot of its power looking for three points shots that never fell, particularly Zhang Wei, who shot took more three pointers (12) than the entire Bayi Telecom team (11).

For Beijing, Zhang Fan led with 19 points and 10 rebounds, which wasn't the only double-double in this game. Zhang Wei added 13 points - when you shoot 12 three-pointers, some of them have to fall. Zhang Lin added nine points.

What about Jennifer Lacy? She played for 20 minutes and scored seven points - six of them at the free throw line. She had three rebounds and no assists.

Over at Bayi Telecom, Chen Nan scored 28 points and 11 rebounds in forty full minutes of play. Sui Feifei - known as "the female Yao Ming" in China due to her popularity - scored 21 points and six rebounds. Ten of her points came from free throws, as she was fouled nine times. Feifei formerly played for the Sacramento Monarchs in 2005, only the second Chinese player to play in the WNBA. She was also a member of the 2008 Olympic women's basketball team for China.