News from China

Bayi Telecom whips Jiangsu 103-74 in the deciding game of their three game semifinal series. Looks like it's going to be Tangela Smith (Liaoning) vs. Sui Feifei (Bayi Telecom) in the five-game finals.

Jennifer Lacy - Chinese All Star?

According to the linked article, Jennifer Lacy was just named the starting center of the North Team for the WCBA All-Star Game.

Guess Jennifer won't be coming home until after February 15th. Supposedly, there was some ballot-stuffing by Beijing fans - Yolanda Griffith of Henan ended up sixth or seventh. (Hands up - which one is better?) I enjoy the following commentary:

This shows that Internet voting is sometimes mischievous. However, Yolanda people do not attach importance to this, she is already the two Olympic champions, have been WNBA championship WCBA All-Star selection can not, can only say that the way this selection is very ridiculous.

Unfortunately, the WCBA faces a lot of problems of the WNBA: "WCBA All-Star Game to develop in February 15, 2009 held, but the venue has not yet been determined. It is understood that the Chinese Basketball Association wanted to get organized to give them 300,000 yuan to the contractor the race, but women's influence is limited, so far nobody wants to take over."

Chinese Democracy

It looks like the Internetz is temporarily down in China, thus no WCBA results.

Until I can find out what happened, here's an article on the musically connected Chicago Sky.

That Was Yo

According to a blog entry from Tangela Smith, Yolanda Griffith is playing in the WCBA. So I guess that that was Yolanda Griffith in the Henan-Jiangsu game.

China Wary of Hiring Foreign Players for WCBA

The article is here, in its translated form.

The article discusses the difficult position that Chinese teams find themselves in when trying to hire American or European players. The problem is that hiring these players "is somewhat like gambling", according to the writer.

From the fractured translation, it seems that Chinese teams obviously want to finish on top of the standings, and they're looking for inside players to do that - particularly for players above 1.9 meters tall (above 6'3" tall). One WNBA player said that she'd come to China to play, but only for $100,000. Sometimes everything is lined up - the player has their visa, etc. - but the deal just falls through.

Chinese teams particularly want centers, but there aren't very many centers of high caliber anywhere around the world. It's implied that some coached just simply don't have confidence that things will work out even if they do get "foreign aid"...in which case, Jennifer Lacy and Ann Strother should consider themselves lucky.

Preliminary Results from China

The server over at the WCBA website is hella busy. I can give you some preliminary results:

Beijing (2-2) defeated Henan (2-2) 95-72. Jennifer Lacy had five points and four rebounds in 15 minutes of play.

Jiangsu (2-2) lost to Hayao (2-2) 99-81. Ann Strother had 12 points and seven rebounds in 30 minutes of play.

More later, hopefully.

Pictures from Liaoyang/Jiangsu

Bian Lan of Jiangsu gets one of her three rebounds.

We actually have some nice pictures from the Liaoyang/Jiangsu game right here. It looks pretty well attended. Liaoyang is in white, Jiangsu is in green.

Note that there are no pictures of Ann Strother anywhere. From the few pictures I've seen, I suspect that the WCBA prefers that "homegrown" talent be highlighted rather than any "foreign aid". Chasity Melvin deserved to be MVP of the first week of the WCBA but the award was given to a Chinese player instead.

By the way, we have an interesting comment from someone anonymous who might be "in the know" about how Ann is doing in China.

Ann left last Sat for China----24hr flight from her hometown---14 hr differential timewise from Colorado. Is loving China and its people, not so sure about eating sparrow and eel, but gradually getting used to the cuisine!!! :)

Why does "sparrow and eel" sound like an Iron Chef challenge? Maybe we should start a Twinkie fund for Ann. "Send all snack foods to...!"

P. S.: Post #400!

WCBA 1/2008 - Guangdong 74, Beijing 66

Who is the mysterious Mimi Brown?

The Beijing (0-1) team traveled to Guangdong (1-0) for the first game of the WCBA season. Beijing found themselves behind in the first half and despite better play in the second half, couldn't make the comeback and lost on the road 74-66.

The boxscore is here: and surprisingly enough, it translates quite well into an English boxscore.

Unfortunately, the box score doesn't tell you if three point shooting is a subset of two point shooting, or if two-point and three-point shooting is completely separated. It doesn't matter because Guangdong shot marginally better, and they absolutely dominated Beijing on the boards, 48-28. Guangdong hit - and shot - more free throws than Beijing.

The only reason that Beijing kept the game close was because the Aluminum Dolphins of Guangdong could not hold on to the ball. (Perhaps their hands were slick from dolphin juice.) Guangdong had 22 turnovers to just eight for Beijing. I think it's been a long time since I've seen a team only have eight turnovers in a game.

For Beijing, Zhang Fan led all scorers with 22 points and 8 rebounds. Jennifer Lacy - listed as Jennifer Rashid - had 15 points in just three quarters of play, good enough to be the second-leading scorer.. She had 3 rebounds and 3 assists. Zhou Honghua added 10 points and six assists.

Guangdong won despite being incredibly shorthanded. They only had seven players to suit up, and they played all of them.

A mystery player known only as "Stefano search. Mimi BROWN" scored 14 points for Guangdong. We know that SSMB was born in January 1976. There are only two WNBA players who were born in January 1976, according to pilight's WNBA player register - Jae Cross and Rita Williams. Neither of those women are 1.91 meters tall (6'3"). If you know who this mystery player is, let the WNBA know - she also scored 16 rebounds and three assists.

Five Guangdong players scored in double figures - no mystery when only seven players have suited up. The best of the group was probably "Huang Huang Loquat" (who may or may not be foreign) who scored 12 points and 10 rebounds.

Beijing will play Qujing Yunan (0-1) in Qujing on October 21st in their next game.

P. S. The insane board posters at RebKell have figured out the identity of Mimi Brown - she's Chasity Melvin, a forward for the Chicago Sky. She's the right height, and was born in 1976. It appears that the WCBA got the birthdate wrong.