UBD cagers look to put up good fight in Hong Kong

Caption: The UBD basketball team in a group photo. Picture: Courtesy of Hawaii Yee

Yee Chun Leong
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN

THE Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) basketball team will be looking to put up a strong challenge at the King’s Flair Cup Group Asian Universities Invitational Basketball Tournament in Hong Kong.

UBD are placed in Group A and they will open their campaign against Kyoto University (Japan) tomorrow.

They will then take on hosts Hong Kong Polytechnic University on Wednesday before closing out group stage play against Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) the next day.

UBD coach Lim Kok Shien expects to provide good competition against their opponents.

“I expect us to put up a good game against our opponents. As long as we give our opponents a run for their money then I think we can pat ourselves on the back,” said Lim in an interview with BruSports yesterday.

“In terms of preparations, we only had four to five sessions of training but I felt we worked on team defence all the time.

“The focus is on cutting down on turnovers and also on some defensive stances like sliding, boxing out and screening,” he added.

When asked on a target, Lim replied: “Giving our opponents a hard game.”

The UBD coach also went on to thank their sponsors Easyway and also Hong Kong Poly for sponsoring lodging, meals, transportation and also some of the ticket expenses.

UBD captain Hawaii Yee also hopes that they will be able to make full use of this chance to play abroad.

“As a team, I just hope that everyone on the team can learn as much as possible playing against other universities as we don’t get many opportunities like this,” said Yee.

“Hopefully we can try to give them a good fight and not allow the games to be one-sided,” he added.

On the other hand, Group B are made up of University of Macau, Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Al Farabi Kazakh National University and South China University of Technology.

The winners of their respective groups will battle for the crown in the final on Saturday while the second-placed teams will fight for the bronze.

UBD basketball team list