Fiba Basketball World Cup: China’s latest sorry defeat sparks Weibo inquest – ‘a shameless bunch with no motivation?’
- China’s defeat by Puerto Rico means they fail to reach the second round and will scrap for the minor placings, with the possibility of their worst-ever finish
- Fans query whether bringing in naturalised NBA star Kyle Anderson made any difference, and say hiring a foreign coach ‘is not a fix’
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Chinese social media users did not hold back after witnessing China lose their third match in as many outings at the Fiba Basketball World Cup.
A 107-89 loss to Puerto Rico in Manila on Wednesday meant that China failed to qualify from their group and were dumped into the classification round to scrap for the minor placings. They are on course to record their worst-ever finish at the tournament.
At minus-80 points overall in the group stage, China ranked second-last among the eight teams who remained winless.
“We were not determined enough on the defensive side, the players didn’t do well communicating with each other on the court,” guard Zhao Jiwei said.
“We did not play with enough flexibility – just executed according to the system and lost some of our characteristics along the way.
“Witnessing the opponents’ physicality, their tactical awareness and execution on the court, we really should learn from them.”
Some Chinese basketball fans were quick to look past Zhao’s reaction and pin the blame on the team’s head coach Aleksandar Dordevic.
“It is obvious employing a foreign coach over a short period is not a fix for our players,” one Weibo user wrote. “We lost our characteristics and style and lost big-time in all three matches.”
“You guys are just not up to the standard,” one person added. “What other characteristics do you have?”
“The characteristics for you all are that you can survive only in CBA [and] the biggest problem is you don’t have any characteristics and do not have any outstanding ability,” another comment read.
“We don’t need to get a foreign coach and trained in Europe to get such bad results, do we?” read another Weibo comment.
“But I guess they just wanted to find someone to take the blame – they got the coach and the player on board based on the principle of taking the blame.”
No Asian sides managed to reach the World Cup’s second round and were all demoted to the classification round, which began on Thursday. China beat Angola 83-76, and will face off with co-hosts the Philippines on Saturday.
The best-performing Asian team at the tournament will qualify for next year’s Paris Olympics.
Co-hosts Japan appeared to hold the advantage after the group stage, when they were the continent’s only side to win a game. They were due to face Venezuela on Thursday, then Cabo Verde on Saturday, in Okinawa.
Ranked 27th in the world, China could yet finish even lower than their worst World Cup showing to date, on home soil in 2019, when they came 24th among 32 teams.
“What has changed after four years? Don’t pretend to have worked hard, because results don’t lie,” a Weibo user wrote.
One comment in Beijing suggested that China did not deserve to play in the World Cup.
“If China have no idea about the level of basketball out there, you are just a poor student who is blind and deaf,” the comment read. “But if they knew about it and still were not prepared, then isn’t China men’s basketball a shameless bunch with no motivation?”
