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NEW ZEALAND WIN 2018 WILLIAM JONES CUP FOR WOMEN; INDIA FINISH 0-5

30/07/2018

The women’s tournament 2018 William Jones Cup – an invitational basketball tournament held in New Taipei City, Taiwan from 25Th to 19th August 2018 concluded with a dominant fourth quarter display the New Zealand Tall Ferns as they defeated Asian champions Japan 85-74 emerging as champions –with a (5-1 )

The win, New Zealand’s first title in the 40th edition of the William Jones Cup, follows recent successes at the Commonwealth Games (where the team claimed bronze) and the FIBA 3×3 Asia Cup where gold was struck.

New Zealand trailed by double figures for most of the second and third periods but outscored the Asian champions 28-12 in the final ten minutes.

The two leading scorers in the tournament Ashleigh Karaitiana playing in WNBL in Australian for Bendigo Spirit also the leading scorer, averaging 22 points per game Stella Beck who also playing in Townsville Flames in WNBL Australia Formerly St Mary’s College, California once again led the Kiwi effort with 25 points and 24 points respectively.

This round-robin tournament with six participating nations of this year’s like the previous year India’s lost every game with a blowout margin to finish at the bottom.

The William Jones Cup was a prelude to the 2018 Asian Games from August 19 to September 1 in Jakarta, Indonesia…

Team India was coached by the former national player and referee Shiba Maggon and led by the squad’s most-talented player as captain, Jeena Scaria who was the leading scorer with 56 Points for India averaging 11.2 and the rebounder with 33 rebounds averaging 6.6 r for India. Other important names in the roster included experienced guard Raspreet Sidhu, Shireen Limaye, Anjana Prasannan Geetha, Stephy Nixon, and more.

India began their campaign with the biggest loss against New Zealand, who routed with a 114-39 victory. Karaitiana single-handedly outscored 38 points in the win.

In Game 2, Japan with six players scoring in double digits to beat India 94-38 and in the third game to South Korea (Eunsil Choi 22) 101-48.

India bettered their scoring performance in their fourth game Republic of China 1, Taiwan A, but the hosts still won comfortably 102-54. Jeena led India with 17 points in the loss and finally lost to the second host team, Taiwan B, 91-60 which was the closest game where more chances were given to the Bench with 17-year-old Tamil Nadus and Pushpa Senthil Kumar led the squad with 16 points. Wei Yu Chun with 20) and Hsi-Yeh Liu with 17 were the scorers for Taiwan.

The 5×5 basketball tournament at the 2018 Asian Games India is in Group X of the tournament along with Korea, Chinese Taipei, Indonesia, and Kazakhstan.