Clubs from Taiwan’s Super Basketball League (SBL), T1 LEAGUE, and P. LEAGUE+ will face off in a 12-team tournament at Taipei’s Heping Basketball Gymnasium from Sept. 17-27, following the cancellation of the William Jones Cup.
With the Taipei-hosted international Jones Cup called off for the third year in a row due to COVID-19 border restrictions, the Chinese Taipei Basketball Association (CTBA) has opted to fill its slot in the calendar with the 2022 Interleague Play tournament.
The tournament will feature four SBL sides (Bank of Taiwan, Taiwan Beer, Yulon Luxgen Dinos, and Changhua BLL); five from the T1 LEAGUE (TaiwanBeer HeroBears, New Taipei CTBC DEA, Taoyuan Leopards, Taichung Suns, and Tainan TSG GhostHawks); two from the P. LEAGUE+ (Hsinchu Lioneers and the Rising Stars, a league squad of young and upcoming players); and Taiwan’s national development squad.
Following an opening round-robin six-team group stage, the top four sides from each group will advance to the single-elimination knockout stage, the CTBA said, and the tournament’s final set to be played on Sept. 27.
CTBA Secretary-General Lee Yun-hsiang (???) said the interleague tournament was also an opportunity for young and upcoming basketball players to showcase their skills and gain experience.
“These freshmen, sophomores, and even rookie players have an opportunity to compete. I believe they want to compete with each other and so that we can witness their performance,” Lee said.
Taiwan Beer rookie Humphery Gabriel told CNA that the tournament is not only a good platform for young players like him, but also provided an opportunity for him to see how other young players, such as his former university teammates, perform.
“For me, my [former] teammate who is in Rising Stars, Jay, I always watch his games and try to support him and also try to see how he is doing too, because if he does good, I also want to do good,” Gabriel said.
Taiwan Beer announced in August they had signed the 1.95-meter-tall Nigerian-born power forward Gabriel, who played for Vanung University in Taiwan’s University Basketball Association’s 2021-2022 season and posted an average of 14.8 points, 12.7 rebounds, and 3.2 assists per game.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel