Swish Swish Shanghai: Tri-Cities Basketball

On December 6, the boys’ and girls’ varsity basketball team went to Shanghai American School of Pudong (SASPD) for Tri-cities. Tri-cities tournaments consist of APAC schools from the three major cities of China: Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou.

The girls immediately started their first game against SASPX. Through a tough game and hard work, the girls unfortunately lost against SASPX. After two days of intense basketball, the girls ended up in fourth place in Tri-cities. Despite their results, the team has performed very well and showed major improvements so far in the season.

Junior Paoping Y. stated that “Although the we got fourth place, we still performed very well throughout the whole tournament. Despite the results of every game, everyone didn’t give up and still played their hardest.” She also commented that they “still have many improvements to make and will continue to work hard in practices for the next APAC tournament.”

Alongside with the girls, the boys also started their first game against SASPX. As the tournament progressed, the boys were against WAB and were close to winning until WAB scored a three-pointer buzzer-beater at the last second before the fourth period ended. Just like the girls’ team, the boys also ended up in fourth in Tri-cities.

Junior Tyler K. commented that “Tri-Cities helped us visualize our level of play, and it also helped us see what we need to improve on. The results of Tri-Cities definitely made us think twice about how hard we have to work during practice throughout the games.” As for improvements, Tyler K. noted that “As a team, we need to work on communication and the energy coming off and on the bench.” Tyler K. believes that the team can definitely get to the “APAC level of play before the APAC tournament in February.”

With much determination, both teams are pushing to train hard for their upcoming APAC tournament in February which will take place at the Western Academy of Beijing (WAB). Show some support and congratulate both our girls and boys for their effort and hard work they put in Tri-cities.