S. Koreans stand tall for NBA Rising Stars win

Heading into the final of the NBA Rising Stars Invitational at the Kallang Tennis Hub on June 29, Yongsan High School had not expected to beat their taller Chinese opponents, Tsinghua University High School.

- Melvyn Teoh

But the South Korean side devised a strategy to overcome the height disadvantage and won 97-48 in front of the 1,100-capacity crowd to take home the title.

Through an interpreter, tournament Most Valuable Player, 1.94m power forward Kim Min-gi said of their win: "I'm incredibly happy; this is going to be a memory that's just going to be unforgettable for the rest of my life."

"The night before, we had a look at the Chinese team, and saw that they were really tall. So we built a game plan based off that to make sure that we were going to tackle them well during the game.

"And also the most important thing was to have that fight, because we had nothing to lose."

Yongsan had beaten Thailand's Assumption College Thonburi 84-28 and the Philippines' National University Nazareth School 84-79 in the round-robin group stage, before overcoming Japan's Fukuoka University Ohori Senior High School 75-65 in the semi-finals.