JAKARTA: Malaysia’s Supersport Wildcats founder and head coach Chloe Lee is satisfied with the progress her side has made at the Young Basketball Association Summer 2023 tournament which ended yesterday in Indonesia.
Despite having lost all the matches, she was satisfied with how her charges had greatly improved the chemistry between them and fluidity of the set-plays.
“My target was to expose my players to an international standard of play, in addition to the preparation that we need to perform well in our ongoing local tournament, the National Community Basketball League (NCBL).
“The amount of communication between my players on the court, in both offence and defence, has improved greatly, perhaps due to the higher level of basketball played here,” she told Bernama.
Lee hopes that her charges would better understand each other’s strength and gain additional knowledge on how the game can and should be played, as well as the ability to make split second decisions in the fast paced and high pressure sport.
The Cheras-based club is among over 40 basketball teams from all over Indonesia to compete in the five-day tournament at the GMC Arena, Cirebon City in West Java, which ended yesterday.
Lee’s side, which was drawn in Group 3 with Indonesia’s GMC Cirebon, GSBC Jakarta and Altana Sampit, lost all its three matches.
She said Supersport Wildcats would like to participate in more local and international tournaments to gain experience and continuously learn from better and stronger opponents.
According to Lee, the biggest difference between the two countries’ basketball is the level of systematic support given to the players in Indonesia.
She said in Indonesia, young players are scouted and subsequently supported via scholarship by the various clubs, which allows both the players and their parents to focus on the sport.
Supersport Wildcats was founded by Lee in 2017 with the intention of further promoting basketball among her non-Chinese players, as basketball is mainly dominated by Chinese players in Malaysia.
Her current mission is to retain the NCBL title as well as establish it as one of the top women’s teams in Malaysia and to help lift women’s basketball, both locally and internationally. – BERNAMA
