Taiwan went down to its third straight defeat in the Asian qualifiers for the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup on Monday, losing to Australia 90-71 despite another strong performance by its newly naturalized player.
Center William Artino, an American who recently also became a citizen of the Republic of China (Taiwan), scored 20 points and grabbed 18 rebounds against Australia, recording his third straight double-double in qualifiers being played in a bubble in Okinawa.
Though Artino was unable to lift the team to victory, Taiwan's overall performance was an improvement from the 98-61 rout it suffered against Australia on Feb. 25.
Taiwan also lost to the Japanese national team, 76-71, on Feb. 26.
In Taiwan's qualifying group, Australia is on top with a 3-0 record, followed by China at 2-0, Japan at 1-3 and Taiwan at 0-3. Each team will play each other twice in a round robin format, with the top three teams in the group advancing to the next qualifying round.
The remaining games in the group will be played in late June and early July, with Taiwan's remaining encounter with Japan likely to decide its fate.
In Monday's contest, Taiwan's relatively young team started well and had a 15-11 lead early but Australia rallied to open a 29-25 lead at the end of the quarter.
Australia then scored the first 10 points of the second quarter to build a comfortable cushion, but Taiwan stayed in touch and got a late three-pointer from guard Pai Yao-cheng (???) to stay within 10 at the half, 56-46.
Taiwan further narrowed the gap to 56-49 on two free throws by Artino and one by center Chou Kuei-yu (???) at the start of the third quarter, giving it hope, but Australia nailed the door shut with a 12-2 run, from which Taiwan could not recover.
Chou and Yao each scored 10 points for Taiwan, while Australia, which only played its starters for about 25 minutes of the 40-minute game, was led by power forward Nick Kay with 14.
Neither team shot particularly well from three-point range, with both making around a third of their shots, but Australia had a big 50-31 edge on the boards, including a 17-6 advantage in offensive rebounds.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel