Youth Olympic Basketball: Spirited Singapore impress the Americans

Story by Koh Yizhe/Red Sports. Photos by Les Tan/Red Sports

*scape Youth Park, Wednesday, August 18, 2010 – In their last Group B match, Singapore put up a fearless performance against tournament favourites and basketball powerhouse the United States of America. The local boys eventually fell 21-33 against their larger, more experienced opponents, but not before taking the lead and causing some difficulty for them.

“They are a pretty good team,” said American Kyle Caudill about the Singapore team who managed to hit their target of scoring 20 points in the game. “They are a very physical team and on a whole, every of them played well as a team. We have to play better as a team if we want to win the gold. We came here for the gold, and of course, we will take any medal, but anything less than a gold will be a disappointment.”

He chose to single out Singapore’s Russel Low as the key player in the team, saying: “The number 5 was particularly good! He was really physical with us and his shooting did surprise us. We didn’t expect him to be able to step back and shoot a three.”

The monstrous 2.11m, 93kg, muscled Angelo Chol also felt that Singapore were “a pretty good team” and that it was a “tough match”. He continued: “I’m not really satisfied with our performance today. We got to do better. We expected to win by (getting to) 33 points. Of course we’re aiming for the gold and anything less will be a disappointment, but I’ll still enjoy the experience being here and all.”

“Out of all the matches of the tournament, this was one of the better games that I played,” commented Russel. “Although USA are one of the powerhouses in the world we proved that we can do it and we managed to put up a good show for the fans.”

“I feel really good to block such a good quality player!” beamed Russel when asked about the massive block he dished out against an American in the game.

“It was definitely our best performance by fair in the tournament,” analyzed team manager Mr Khoo Hwa Pang. “In the previous games, the whole team didn’t play up to their potential, but in this match, everyone did. The complete team showed up today and I think everyone did a personal best. Including Larry Liew!”

“In this match, we were really facing the giants but our boys showed no fear. It is really quite an amazing performance from them. They were totally fearless. These are really potential NBA and NCAA players, but we performed to their true potential today. The boys had the competition mindset today,” added the team manager.

For Singapore fixtures and results, go to our 2010 YOG fixtures page