China’s schedule at the 2012 London Olympics men’s basketball competition

(Prelim Round Group B)

July 29: lt to Spain 81-97

July 31: lt to Russia 54-73

Aug 2: lt to Australia 61-81

Aug 4: lt to Brazil 59-98

Aug 6: Vs. Great Britain (1545 GMT)

Group Standings

LONDON, United Kingdom (2012 London Olympics): China’s winless woes in the 2012 London Olympics men’s basketball competition continued on Saturday with the team going down rather tamely 59-98 (Box scores) to 2011 FIBA Americas Championship winners Brazil, thus suffering their fourth defeat in as many games in Group B Prelim Round.

China, thus failed to qualify for the quarterfinals for the second time in five Olympics – having made the last eight grade at Atlanta in 1996, Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008 – and will now play Great Britain in their final Prelim Round game on Monday.

A win against the hosts of the 2012 London Olympics will not only bring China their first win in the competition and salvage some pride, but will also help the Asian team avoid their worst ever finishes in the Olympics men’s basketball competition – that of 12th (at Barcelona in 1992) or 11th (at Seoul in 1988). China had finished 10th at Los Angeles in 1984 and Sydney in 2000.

Historically, China had beaten Brazil only once in six previous meetings in international competitions, and the proceedings of the first quarter reflected why the South Americans held such a lopsided record.

Scoring from China in the first period was scarce and sporadic for the first 10 minutes – Guo Ailun adding a semblance of flesh to the skeletal Chinese score – as Brazil literally ran circles around the rival defense.

Brazil opened the game with a 9-2 run and were up by a whopping 25-9 margin at the end of the first quarter. And the gap only kept widening over the next 30 minutes. In short, Brazil’s scoring moved in geometric proportions in every quarter, while China struggled to get an even arithmetic progression together.

Zhu Fangyu (pic above), the highest scorer in CBA history, led China’s scoring for the night with 13 points.

Yi Jianlian, cleared the clouds of injury and played the longest, but saw only one of his nine field attempts hit the mark and returned a woefully sub-par 3 points.

Chen Jianghua accounted for 10 points, the third time the young and upcoming point guard has scored 10 or more points in the competition.

China shot an awful 19/55 from the field and were beaten 32-49 in the battle of boards.

FIBA Asia