We formed the staff basketball team of Xiamen University of Malaysia

I have been to Xiamen University of Malaysia for more than one month. Shortlyafter my coming at the beginning of December, in order to make use of theleisure time after working and our university which is far from the city, I andanother colleague thought of an idea to form the staff basketball team and thenquickly called on other staffs seconded from China to join the teams stemmingfrom our common interest and enthusiasm towards the basketball. At present ourstaff basketball team of XMUM is made up of almost 15 members, most of whom arefrom China. On December 16th, our team met the first rival SinohydroGroup. It was a marvelous and closely fought game.

In the first quarter, ourteam quickly came into their own with some good jump shots and controlled thegame, leaving the score at 10:4 to Sin hydro Group.

But the situation wastotally changed in the second quarter. The staff team withdrew some mainplayers from the court and became less competitive. And the counterpart foundthe weakness and gained a lot of points in this quarter, ending the secondquarter with a score of 21:15 to our staff team.

After the half-time break,our team learned the lesson and always put the main players on the court. Thestaff members become more aggressive and gave the rival more pressure. By theend of the third quarter, both sides were equal, 28:28.

Through the third quarter,the morale of our team was greatly boosted. Our team began to control the gameagain, strengthened the press defense and gained a lot of points throughsteals. Soon our team pulled away early in the fourth quarter, ending the scoreat 42:32.

This is the first victoryfor the staff basketball team of XMUM since its formation. It is just thebeginning for them. Every week, the staff basketball team has three times’training to better prepare for the future match. 

On the New Year Eve of2017, we had the second match with them and we easily defeated them, becausesome of them went to celebrate the New Year and did not show up in the court.

On January 5th,it is a new and fresh experience to have basketball match with the team offoreigners. It is a very tight, exciting and fierce game. The foreigners arevery strong. It lasted for about two hours and our team finally won the game very toughly.

Tonight we will have the match confronting the MK Company which supplies the curtains for our university. Let’s expect it!