From our other sites
The story
In the final match of Group A of the men’s basketball preliminary round at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, Japan lost to Korea 83-100, finishing the first round in second place with a 2-1 record. Korea went 3-0 to top the group. Reactions on 5ch pointed out that Japan’s squad was built around young players rather than the full national team, and that for Korea, winning a medal at the Asian Games exempts athletes from mandatory military service — meaning they field serious lineups across every sport. Users also compared this to Japan’s strong showing in other sports like volleyball, and discussion touched on the nationality and backgrounds of national team players.
Daily Sports
9/13
On the 13th, at IG Arena in Nagoya, the men’s basketball preliminary round — held ahead of the official opening of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games — saw Japan lose to Korea 83-100 in Group A’s final match, closing out the group stage in second place with a 2-1 record. Korea topped the group with a perfect 3-0 record. The quarterfinals will be held on the 16th.
Source: daily.co.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
>Alex Kirk (34)
Surprisingly not that young-player-focused after all
Just the B-team
Meanwhile basketball is like this…
Men's soccer and men's volleyball aren't sending their A-teams either, are they
But swimming and track and field go in at full strength
Volleyball's missing Ishikawa and Nishida too
Makes sense, back-to-back volleyball tournaments would be brutal
Though apparently Ishikawa is playing on the women's side lol
Volleyball: total win
Basketball and baseball: total loss
There's no other team sport where we lose to Korea
Baseball, soccer, volleyball — Japan wins those like it's nothing
Korea's not all pure-blooded either
Even the U19 soccer captain was of Russian descent
Korea's got mixed-race players too
Eddie Daniel
Volleyball is way more popular than basketball these days
I can't get into basketball because the players — pro, amateur, men's, women's — all seem so flashy and shallow
Volleyball, even at the high school level, is brutally strict and disciplined
In basketball you can get by just being tall even with low athleticism
But in volleyball your whole body has to be spring-loaded, diving for low balls
The intensity, athleticism, and pace are all way higher in volleyball
Basketball feels flat and monotonous, like it's just tossing balls into a hoop
That's different from volleyball or soccer
And Japan losing to them anyway is just pathetic
Nah, they're strong enough to beat China repeatedly
Wait, Ishikawa's not playing?
Though Sato and others are
A sport where the outcome comes down to body size difference
No matter how much money you pour into facilities and promotion, it'll never catch on
Honestly I don't even count volleyball as a real sport either
Any sport that can't win Olympic gold, just scrap it, scrap it
( ´◔‿◔`)
Especially in baseball, since it's the only tournament where they can earn the exemption
So just baseball then?
Oh, and women's soccer too
It's embarrassing
Exactly right
For Korean athletes, this matters more than their sport's Asian championships (Asia Cup) or Olympic qualifiers
Korea sends its A-team in every single sport at the Asian Games
It's the tournament with the best odds of landing the military exemption
Japan basically sends second-stringers across the board — even judo is mostly young up-and-comers
Apparently athletes in other sports call that unfair — guess it's the same story in basketball, lol
The easiest exemption route for Korea is baseball
The only real competition is Japan and Taiwan, but Japan sends industrial-league amateurs, and Taiwan isn't fielding its best either
Honestly it'd be embarrassing if they *didn't* get the exemption at that level
In basketball, plenty of countries besides Korea send their full A-squad and go all in
Japan's using it as a development ground for young players though
Background and key points of this discussion
South Korea has a system that exempts athletes from mandatory military service for strong results at events like the Asian Games or the Olympics — a topic that often comes up around baseball and soccer — and basketball falls under this system too, with the team this time believed to be fielding its core players. Meanwhile, the view within the thread was that Japan’s roster, separate from its full national team, was centered on players from the development pipeline. It’s also worth noting that a post claiming “Korea’s team is all pure-blooded Koreans” was corrected by another reply citing the presence of mixed-race players on the roster, so it’s not as simple a picture as it might seem. There was also a comment noting that Japanese basketball currently ranks around 7th in Asia, suggesting it would be premature to draw broad conclusions about the overall skill gap from this one result against Korea.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports Express+) thread “[Basketball] Japan loses to Korea, advances in 2nd place — Asian Games, Japan 83-100 Korea.”
Leave a Reply