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The story
Japan’s men’s basketball national team defeated Saudi Arabia 106-78 in their opening match of the World Cup Asian second-round qualifiers. The NBA’s Rui Hachimura (LA Clippers) made his presence felt on both ends of the floor with 29 points, drawing reactions on 5ch like “He’s just on a different level” and “It’s like one adult wandered into a kids’ game.”
The broadcast’s low TV ratings, along with a past clash between Hachimura and the Japan Basketball Association over national team call-ups, have also become talking points.
Delivered 8/28 (Fri) 5:21 AM — Sankei Sports
The men’s basketball World Cup Asian second-round qualifiers kicked off on the 27th. World No. 22 Japan won big on the road in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, beating World No. 65 Saudi Arabia 106-78 that same day (in the early hours of the 28th, Japan time). It was the first time in roughly four years that Japan’s national team had topped 100 points in an official match.
Rui Hachimura (28), of the NBA’s LA Clippers, and Yuki Kawamura (25), who signed an Exhibit 10 training-camp contract with the Clippers, both played in an official national team match for the first time since the 2024 Paris Olympics. Hachimura led all scorers on both teams with 29 points in 27 minutes 42 seconds, also flashing a spectacular block on defense as he carried the team at both ends.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Seriously, it felt like there was this level gap where just one adult had wandered into a kids' game
Watching Hachimura out there makes it look like everyone else is just goofing around
Average height: 169-170cm
That's bigger than guys from Kyushu, huh
They hovered around 1.0-1.2% for the whole match
NHK General
Cruising from the Sky (Special Edition)
0.6%
Nippon TV
NTV Poshule: Get Through the Hot Night! Bargain Special (rerun)
0.6%
TV Asahi
FIBA Basketball Men's World Cup Final Qualifiers
1.1%
TBS
Kaimono Lab (Shopping Lab)
0.3%
TV Tokyo
The Art of the Evening Drink 5 ~Summer Edition~ (rerun)
0.3%
Fuji TV
Hapi-Ichi
0.3%
Basketball and soccer play a lot of their games overseas, so that's somewhat unavoidable
Volleyball and baseball, on the other hand, get hosted in Japan almost every time
The second I hear someone likes Harai-chi, I can't stand them (Harai-chi = a popular Japanese comedy duo)
Didn't even know it was on
Wish Yahoo had plugged "game tonight" a bit harder
They cut him loose to bring Hacchi (Hachimura's nickname) back into the fold
It wasn't just the coach — the federation president and the strengthening committee chief are both gone too
Don't see them interacting much
And Watanabe's not even here this time
Watanabe's sitting out with a conditioning issue
So you want him clashing again with the coach who spent years building a Hachimura-less team, only calling him up for the actual Olympics?
This basically is an Olympic qualifier
Doesn't even come close to baseball
It's a height game at the end of the day
That's where the smart kids lose interest
That's wild — hard to picture with real players, but the second someone drops a Slam Dunk comparison it just clicks
My read on Hachimura's "not world-class" comment is that he was criticizing Hovasse's my-way-or-the-highway style — pushing his own ideas without respecting the players — as an approach that's already outdated by world standards
I don't think it was about X's-and-O's ability
For what it's worth, the two assistants actually running the tactics do have NBA assistant coaching experience
Volleyball was only strong in the group stage too
And baseball wouldn't win either once a bunch of MLB guys show up on the other side
Baseball doesn't have anything like that
It's not that the federation lost — the thing is, the federation was flat-out in the wrong
Hachimura had already announced he wouldn't play in that exhibition game, but the association pulled a "Hachimura's playing!" bait-and-switch just to move tickets
When a reporter asked, "Hachimura said he wasn't playing, so why did you sell tickets advertising him as playing?" all they could manage was the lame excuse: "We knew he wasn't playing, but our hope that he would just… slipped out"
Which is exactly why salaries go through the roof if you don't keep it in check
Probably hard to pull off without real basketball IQ
Sure, that's legal
But the other team's got 250cm guys too, so the pass just gets picked off
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[Basketball] Japan Men’s National Team Routs Saudi Arabia in a 100-Point Game — Rui Hachimura’s 29 Points Carry the Team on Both Ends, Off to a Strong Start Toward the World Cup“.
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