The National EMBA Basketball Championship that comes once per year had finally started on Nov. 14 at the National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) and the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST). Despite the NTU EMBA Basketball Team was scheduled for a match in the morning of the same day, Nov. 14, at the NTNU stadium, we still had many players to attend the opening ceremony held at NTUST to demonstrate our team’s honorable sportsmanship and respect for the organizer.

We were assigned to the Death Group in the preliminaries to meet two strong foes: Chi Nan University and Chengchi University. Our morale was high since the beginning and was able to secure leading position. However, in the bottom half Chi Nan managed to close the gap with aggressive rebounds and multiple, extremely difficult 3-point shots. NTU EMBA team fought tenaciously to regain the leading advantage several times, and eventually Chi Nan’s magical 3-point shot just 3 seconds before the bell rang took out NTU EMBA team by only 2 points.

Losing the first match, NTU EMBA team’s only chance to stay in the games was to win Chengchi with significant points.  Under this dire circumstance, Teacher Cheng Zhong-Ren, the spiritual leader of NTU EMBA Basketball Team, pulled together the team and gave a speech that reignited the team’s desire to fight on. Fully boosted again, the team returned with a go for broke spirit and mounted a ferocious attack. It worked. The point-gap increased rapidly; the weakness in defense seen in the first half didn’t happen again; key shooters’ aims improved. In the end the team won with 17 points and secured No. 6 position in the preliminaries; it was qualified for the quarter final on the 15th.

The 8 EMBA teams in the quarter final were all forces to be reckoned with. NTU EMBA team would have to deal with NTNU, No. 3 in the preliminaries with 2 straight wins and no loss.  The two teams were equally strong, but the loser will be eliminated for the semifinal. It was an intensive, breath-holding duel. The two teams exchanged leading position repeatedly like a trench warfare. Luckily for us, Chen Ri-Xing was in finally in the 4th quarter and took over from there. He made multiple and critical shots to earn points enough to stabilize the situation, and helped to win this fierce match. 10 seconds before the end, Chen successfully stole the ball from the NTNU’s offense at the frontcourt, but Chen chose not to take his shot. Instead, Chen turned and walked toward the NTNU player, extended his hand for a handshake as a gesture of admiration for the respectable competitor. This act definitely was the best practice and the best sportsmanship in this year’s EMBA Basketball Championship.

The NTUST basketball court, where the quarter final took place, not only has spacious grandstand, but also that the organizer had invited a celebrity commentator of major basketball games like Chinese CBA, SBL in Taiwan, and William Jones’s Cup, as our games’ commentator. The organizer had arranged prestigious entrance, even with the luxury of background fanfare, for each of the players and coaches, as if the Championship was a world-class event. Everyone was impressed. What was worth mentioning is that when the host introduces NTU EMBA’s Chen Ri-Xing and the Couch, Gu Ji-Xiong, all of the teams’ players and spectators, in hundreds, greeted the two with roof-breaking cheering and applause as their respect and loving for national heroes, despite the two would be their teams’ major roadblocks on their way to victory. That was a paradigm of gentlemen and sportsmanship.

Once again, in the semifinal, NTU EMBA Basketball team was to meet with an old friend, Chi Nan, the team that won over our team in the preliminaries by a very thin margin. But this time, Chi Nan had added a high-tower to its order of battle: a 190 cm high player who was not seen in the preliminaries. Chi Nan’s perimeter shots would be even more formidable and rebounds overwhelming. Despite NTU EMBA team had given all it’s got and brought the point-gap narrower for several times, the team was exhausted and lost again to Chi Nan by 10 points.

Being denied to the final and stopped at the third place in this year’s National EMBA Basketball Championship, all players of NTU EMBA Basketball Team thanked each other for the efforts and hard works spent on practice and the matches over quite a long period. They would carry on and keep on fighting toward the title of champion of the next year’s Championship.

Being in the Championship is only another brilliant part of the journey of NTU EMBA Basketball Team. Under the leadership of Chen Ri-Xing and the Couch, Gu Ji-Xiong, the band of brothers have learned more about basketball knowledge and sportsmanship in the trainings and practices. Duty delegation, self-sacrifice, Gung-Ho spirit and brotherly kinship, these are all priceless experience and memory more important than any trophy of title.

NTU EMBA Basketball Team is a passionate and energetic student club, a tight crew consists of brothers and sisters that vow to take care of each other. All students are welcome to join our big family and share our lives together through the sport of basketball.