Jung Kwan-jang couldn’t escape the injury bug in the new year.
Anyang Jung Kwanjang lost 71-83 to Seoul SK in a regular season game of the 2023-2024 Jeong Kwanjang Professional Basketball League at Jamsil Student Gymnasium on January 7.
The loss was the second in a row for the team, which fell to 11-20 on the season and remained in seventh place.
Prior to the game, Kwanjang was without starting guard Park Ji-hoon (184 cm, G) due to a cold. After this game, 카지노사이트 Chung removed Park from the roster for the upcoming game against the Chiba Jets in the East Asian Super League (EASL) on the 10th.
Coach Kim Sang-sik, who was full of worries due to a series of injuries until the third round, said, “After today’s game, we will go to Japan. I’m also worried about going to Japan. (Park Ji-hoon) will join us when we go to Japan. In Japan, we will play with Asian quarters and foreign players. As always, we just have to do our best,” he said, adding that he was worried about the tight schedule and the players’ physical fitness.
In the game, Jung Kwan-jang evenly matched SK in the first quarter. Jung Hyo-geun (200 cm, F), Robert Carter Jr (206 cm, F), and Lee Jong-hyun (203 cm, C) played a one-position game with active moves in the post against Jamil Warney (199 cm, C) and Oh Se-geun (200 cm, C). In particular, Jung Hyo-geun was the team’s scoring leader, utilizing various offensive skills such as post-ups, passing, and shooting.
At the beginning of the third quarter, it looked like the game was going to go down to the wire as SK fell behind 37-56, but the team took advantage of SK’s mid-quarter lull to pull away with points from Jung Hyo-geun and Robert Carter Jr.
However, with 2:44 left in the third quarter, Jung Hyo-geun stepped on SK’s Leon Williams’ foot while driving to the basket and suffered a broken left ankle. He fell to the court and screamed in pain, eventually being helped to the bench by a trainer.
With Jung Hyo-geun out of the game, Kwanjang managed to pull within one, 61-66, in the fourth quarter, but there was no more comeback, as SK’s offense led by Warney and Ahn Young-jun collapsed, handing Kwanjang its fourth straight loss against SK this season.
For Chung, the injury to Chung Hyo-geun was a bigger blow than the loss. This season, Chung has been struggling to find the best lineup with injuries to Bae Byeong-jun (189cm, G), Darryl Monroe (197cm, C), Kim Kyung-won (198cm, C), and Lens Avando (186cm, F). The loss of Chung Hyo-geun to injury on this day also put the team’s late-season operations in jeopardy.
As a result of the injuries, the team lost seven games in a row twice this season, extending its losing streak to seven games and widening its gap to four games over the sixth-place Ulsan Hyundai Mobis, the playoff minimum.
The team will need to utilize its resources to replace the injured players, but with Lee Woo-jung (184 cm, G), Ko Chan-hyuk (184 cm, G), and Na Sung-ho (188 cm, F) not seeing much playing time, the team is far from stable. As the battle for the top spot intensifies after the All-Star break, the team will need to get its injured players back and build a stable roster.
Round 4 is the fourth round of injuries for Jung Kwan-jang.