Increased Olympic Hopes for Men’s Basketball Team

The Korean basketball team, which is aiming to come out on top again in Asia, has just acquired a strong, new player.

Argentina-born center Kim Min-soo (KyungHee University) was allowed to play at the 24th Asian Men’s Basketball Championships. Korea’s coach Choi-Boo-yeong said, “We talked with the organizing committee, which confirmed that Kim can play.”

Kim Min-soo, who had played as a Korean starting forward from last year, received a notice at the match with Hong Kong that he can play only after he proves that he hasn’t played for the Argentine national squad. Since then, he was banned to play for four games. But now, as the Korean squad has Kim Joo-seong, Ha Seung-jin and of course, Kim Min-soo, the chance of winning entry into the 2008 Beijing Olympics is ever-increasing.

Meanwhile, Japan, aiming to win the championship at home struck a blow at a match on July 31. Japan, set to go to the Olympics for the first time in 31 years, went through the lobbying scandal before it won the bid to host this game, defeating Lebanon at the preliminary round thanks to unconvincing judging of a referee. However it was defeated by Kazakhstan with 85-93 at the Quarter Final Round.

To win the championship, Japan had former NBA player Sakuragi (31 years old and 208 cm tall), better known as J.R. Henderson, obtain Japanese citizenship, but Sakuragi so far has failed to meet expectations, averaging 8.7 points and six rebounds in his four games.

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