Eastern heading to Basketball Champions League qualifiers, first Hong Kong side to play in tournament in 22 years
- Eastern are in Group A alongside NS Matrix Deers of Malaysia, Prawira Harum Bandung of Indonesia and Mongolia’s league runners-up
- Four spots in the next stage of the region’s biggest basketball club competition are up for grabs at the tournament in Ulaanbaatar in April
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Hong Kong will have a representative in the region’s biggest basketball club competition this month, the first time a team from the city has competed in the top tier for more than 20 years.
Local A1 Division champions Eastern have secured a spot in the first round of the Basketball Champions League Asia qualifiers, which will take place in Ulaanbaatar, the Mongolian capital, from April 3 to 7.
Senior club officials said the return of the tournament, which was previously known as the Fiba Asia Champions Cup, presented local players with “glorious” opportunities to test themselves against the best in the region.
“It’s been too long since a local team last played in the tournament,” Wilson Choi Fong-yue, the team manager, said. “These are some rare opportunities for our players to make a statement for themselves if they are to pursue overseas opportunities.
“Me and Yung Kam-wah earned overseas contracts after playing in the Champions Cup, so 20 years on, the current generation have the same opportunities.”
Launched in 1981 and last held in 2019, the Fiba Asia Champions Cup has been won once by a team from Hong Kong, when Regal beat Kia Motors in the 1997 final, before losing to Beijing Hanwei a year later.
Winling was the last team from the city to compete at the tournament, reaching the semi-finals in 2001 and finishing ninth among 10 teams in 2002.
The 49-year-old Choi was a part of those four teams, and said while there was no support from the government or the basketball association, it was an opportunity that is “too good to miss”.
“Players need to play at the highest level to improve, so hopefully we can achieve some results and make it to the main tournament,” he said.
However, Eastern will have to do it with a makeshift roster as Sheikh Sulaiman and Joshua De Villa do not hold Hong Kong passports and are therefore not eligible, while starting point guard Oliver Xu has left the club.
The team has borrowed local player Yip Yiu-pong from South China, while free agent Ng Chung-tsun has been signed on a short-term contract.
Dominic Gilbert, who plays as a local player in the city’s league, is considered an import player in BCL Asia. The same applies to Chris McLaughlin, the league’s MVP, and Eastern has also recruited American forward Isaiah Eisendorf, who last played in the Israeli Basketball Premier League, for BCL Asia.
Eastern, who have won the Asean Basketball League (ABL) twice, are in Group A alongside NS Matrix Deers of Malaysia, Prawira Harum Bandung of Indonesia and the league runners-up from Mongolia.
Group B will consist of Hi-Tech Basketball Club from Thailand, Adroit Club from Singapore, the Indonesian side Pelita Jaya Basketball, and the Mongolian domestic champions.
“I believe the four teams in the group are quite close,” Stephen Chan Siu-wing, the Eastern co-captain, said. “We played NS Matrix in the ABL and I think the Mongolia team will be the biggest challenge for the top sport because of their physicality.”
The top teams from each group will advance to the second round, which will be held in Jakarta from April 23 to 26, while teams finishing second and third in each group will go head-to-head to determine the remaining two spots for the next phase.
Winners in round two will join the champions of Japan, South Korea, China and the Philippines, plus two teams from the Fiba West Asia Super League, for the main tournament later this year.
