Japanese B-League 2016-2017 Season

[Hoop Scribe]

The Latest B. League notebook and related coverage can be found on The Japan Times' basketball page.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2018/04/05/basketball/b-league/ryumo-ono-playing-pivotal-role-chibas-success-season

[JAMSKIE]

Japan's ace point guard Yuki Togashi has missed a No. of games lately for his team Chiba Jets in the B League. Is he injured?

[JAMSKIE]

Emperor's Cup 2018 and the 2nd B-League All-Star week

Ah ok. I thought the Japanese national team is going to train in this 2-week period. Thanks for replying

[CKR13]

Emperor's Cup 2018 and the 2nd B-League All-Star week

[JAMSKIE]

Why is there a lull in the Japanese B League from January 3 to 17? http://www.asia-basket.com/Japan/basketball.asp

Is that to give way to the national team preparation for the home-and-away window games this february?

[sinobball]

47 year old Takehiko Orimo still averaging double figures? What?

[CKR13]

Playing in the B-League and seeing an increase in his minutes, Leo Vendrame is starting to come up as a big time performer, backed his sheer athleticism and that rare drive to crash the boards. His offense has improved and started to show that baseline dribble pull-up. His only deficit now is being a point guard as he is playing as a shooting guard at best, paired with Hirose. Team offense suffers from too much one on one on the wings.

[CKR13]

Saw the replay of the Chiba vs Yokohama game. Yuki Togashi is shaping up to be a clutch performer and not deferring to the foreign player or the one of the veterans to take the shot. In this game, Togashi made the clutch shot only to see it answered later by Yokohama's Kawamura.

This season, getting let go by Nagoya, Kawamura built himself up again with the B-Corsairs. Unlike lat season where his main focus was iso offense, Kawamura is thriving with more varieties in his game from catch and shoot situations and running the fast-break.

His one on one skills may no longer be like that of his prime years from 2008 - 2011, but his catch and shoot game is pretty much still elite. It's up there with Kanamaru, Taguchi, Joho and Furukawa.

[CKR13]

One former BJ-League powerhouse team that I'm sad to see faltering is Akita. Right at the bottom of the East. One interesting occurrence is them at the bottom of the league when it comes to second chance possessions and overall rebounding. Scott Morrison is averaging a Japan career low because of the pacing of the team and its perimeter oriented offense.

They badly miss the rebound kings Roy Turner and Richard Roby. Also, the team averages less than a 1.0blk per game. That simply won't do against conference opponents Toyota, Hokkaido, Tochigi and Chiba.

[CKR13]

In watching the first B-League All-star, Yuki Togashi is quickly maturing into a league's best point guard. That growing confidence of being able to score for himself during crucial moments, instead of being a passive PG is what made the likes of Setsumasa, Tabuse, Ishizaki and Hiejima as stars of the league. Togashi will be an important part of the NT for years to come.

[CKR13]

Have to hand it to the dedicated booster fans of Chiba, big factor in the team's All-Japan Emperor's Cup championship this year.

[CKR13]

Very strong play from Kawasaki's Nick Fazekas for the past two months. Looking likely as the B-League's first regular season MVP.

[CKR13]

For the very first B-League All-Star Weekend, they invited the KBL club Anyang KGC to play the Brave Thunders lead by Fazekas. The one game match in 14/1/17 will be known as the East Asia Club Championship. Due to the KBL winter break, it allowed KGC to participate.

[CKR13]

Sanen Phoenix will sign Josh Childress ( 08-10 Olympiakos / 14-16 Sydney Kings ) to a 6 month contract. This club has a blueprint of signing multi-faceted players who can register a triple double from the days of Wayne Arnold to Kevin Galloway and now Childress.

[CKR13]

Saw the replay of the Sanen Phoenix - Brave Thunder weekend series. Phoenix is an uptempo team since their previous incarnations but it seems that this Thunder squad was not prepared for the game as the fast breaking Phoenix players were in fact positioning themselves for open threes and they converted.

Toshiba struggled with the flow of their offense with Naoto Tsuji and Nick Fazekas mostly alternating shots. Although the Thunder would find their footing in the 4th quarter, Phoenix had built a sizable lead to preserve for the win. Olu Ashalou, Tatsuya Suzuki and Shingo Okada kept the offense in pace.

In the second game, Phoenix looked worn out from their frenzied pace in game 1. This is where the Thunder took advantage as Tsuji and Shinoyama orchestrated the offense by focusing on Fazekas and finding the winger, Ryan Spangler wide open as Phoenix used a double team inside.

The weird part is that Phoenix won comfortably even when Roby was struggling but was blown out when he was shooting good.