China Guangxi hoop down Cambodia

Cambodia National Basketball Team suffered their first defeat losing by 10 points to China Guangxi in the second game of their group B fixtures on Wednesday night.

China Guangxi haven been rested in the opening day fixtures came out smoking and took the game to the Visitor from the blast winning the first half 34-28.

With only 6 points deficit in the first half, Cambodia fought back and put themselves into the game leveling scores at 40-40 with 1 minute to the end of the third quarter with the trio of Pek Mith, Boroth Thach and Sopoeun Oeun with the support of home boys Phal Sophors, Meas Rithyravuth, playing some scintillating basketball to silence the over 2000 spectators at the indoor hall.

However, with the Umpires failing to make some calls in favour of the Cambodians, China Guangxi took advantage of several turnovers to put themselves in the lead 51-61 at the end of the third quarter.

Cambodia stepped up the game in the fourth quarter but the Chinese team held on to their lead to finish the game 71-62.

"It was a good game though we lost, but I can say we lost gallantly" Coach Austin Koledoye stated after the match. "Honestly Our Players did well but the officiating was appalling" He remarked. " I accept defeat when i lose but it was obvious that the referee was in favour of the Chinese team as he failed to call several fouls against our team" Austin noted.

Taking the positives from the defeat, Coach Austin believes that the bonding of the team is what is vital as they prepare for the SEA games and so he is quite happy that the foreign players and local players are beginning to gel together.

" I have to congratulate the team because we had two of our players out injured in after the first game. In all, this team is very young and we have shown good spirit against a good Chinese side". He said

He also identified some problems in terms of the physical fitness of the team and hope to work on it before the SEA games

"In the last Quater our legs had gone a little bit and we were hanging on with a bit of luck hoping to catch them on the counter. Many of my players have not played at that level and that intensity so it was vital for us tonight to learn one or two things, and for the Foreign players, these tournament gives them a good taste of Asia Basketball" The Nigerian tactician opined.

Cambodia will take on Vietnam Hanoi 1:30pm local time on Thursday and wrap up the group stage against Chinese Taipei on Friday. They need to win both matches to make it to the semi finals.

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