Review -November 14, 2010

TURKMENISTAN 85-90 MONGOLIA
Mongolia jumped to a 16-6 lead to start the game and never looked back. They were tied 22-all with 10 seconds left in the first quarter and tied at 46-46 at the end of the first half, but Mongolia kept pushing the tempo and led the entire second half. Mongolia head coach Odonbataar Bayartsogt said, "We won the game mostly relying on our play in fast pace." Mongolia was led by its captain, PF Sedbazar Shinen, who scored a team-high 22 points and grabbed a team-high 9 rebounds. Ikhbayar Ganbataar played well in under 25 minutes off the bench, scoring 15 points, had 3 steals, and dished a game-high 6 assists while turning it over only once. Also playing well were starting G Badrakh Munkhbayar (14 points, 2 three-pointers, 2 steals ) and starting SF Uuganbayar Oyuntsetseg (14 points, 3 rebounds).
In the loss for Turkmenistan, a few players stood out. Starting SG/SF Aleksandr Pashkov had a game-high 25 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists, and 6 steals, playing 39:42 out of a possible 40 minutes. Starting PG Toyli Bayriyev, who played the entire game, scored 20 points (3/5 from three-point land), 7 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 steals. 6'11 starting C Maksim Otbozin posted 12 points and 8 rebounds. Off the bench playing well was 6'8 PF Pavel Averyanov, who scored 12 points and grabbed 12 rebounds in 26 minutes of action.
Despite being outscored in the paint 42-22, Mongolia was much better on the perimeter, using their quick guards and forwards to shoot 11 threes (32% as a team) compared to just 4-15 (27%) shooting for Turkmenistan. Also, Mongolia shot much better from the free-throw line, at 75.8%, than Turkmenistan (46.7) and Turkmenistan had 12 more free throw attempts. Turkmenistan's greatest strength today was their height as the outscored Mongolia in the paint as well as outrebounded them 3-29.
Mongolia's next match will be Group A action against defending Asian Games gold-medalist China Tuesday 7:15 pm local time at the Guangzhou International Sport Arena. Turkmenistan unfortuntely say good-bye to the competition. For their first real taste of international competition, they definately played well. Hopefully we will see them attempt to qualify for FIBA-Asia and play in future tournaments and competitions as they can definately be competitive and add to great competition in Asia.
 My TUR player of the match: Toyli Bayriyev
My MON player of the match: Sedbazaar Shinen