WCBA 14/2008 - Jiangsu 94, Liaoyang 81

Watch out for Jiangsu (10-4) - they might have moved from pretenders to contenders. They've moved into a tie for second place in the WCBA and are only two games out of first place with eight games to go in the season. Liaoyang (5-9) became the latest victim, losing 94-81 at Jiangsu.

Jiangsu fell behind 22-16 after one quarter, but outscored Liaoyang by 14 in the second to take a 46-38 lead into halftime. Both teams played evenly in the third quarter, and Jiangsu extended the lead in the fourth quarter to go into double-digits in the win category.

One more win and Jiangsu is guaranteed to finish at .500 for the season. That should get them into the playoffs even if disaster strikes the rest of the way.

The boxscore is here.

Once again, the win is just a case of one team outshooting another. Jiangsu shot 50 percent from the field compared to 38 percent from Liaoyang - has there ever been a case where one team outshot another by 10 percent or more and lost? Both teams were about even in offensive rebounding. There were few turnovers in the game, but Jiangsu sent Liaoyang to the line 34 times - a good thing that Liaoyang only shot 67 percent from the free throw line.

Three players would score more than 20 points each for Jiangsu. Bian Lan scored 24 points and eight assists. Xu Song played all forty minutes, scored 23 points and 11 rebounds. Chen Xiaojia also scored 23 points and 11 rebounds, a rarity of two double-doubles on the same team. (If Wang Xiao-Li had picked up a couple of rebounds, it would have been three double doubles.)

How well did Ann Strother do? She scored nine points. Her 2-for-7 shooting was poor, but a) she was 4 for 4 from the free throw stripe, and b) she scored nine rebounds.

Liu Dan led Liaoyang with 22 points and nine rebounds. "Song Peacekeeping Force" scored 21 points and eight rebounds, and Zhao Shuang scored 12 points and six rebounds.