VietNamNet Bridge - The Mekong Delta River province of Soc Trang, which is 231km southwest of HCM City, has been a main centre of basketball in Viet Nam along with HCM City and Air Force-Air Defence for decades.

Soc Trang’s forward (left) tries to throw the ball in the clash against Air Force-Air Defence at the National Basketball Championship in HCM City.

Basketball has yet to develop into a professional sport like football or volleyball in Viet Nam but Soc Trang, HCM City and Air Force-Air Defence are the main training centres for national squad players.

In Viet Nam, Soc Trang has the best local team, organising tournaments at different levels from district to club, and providing the national team with the best men’s and women’s players for international competitions.

Team of stars

The team, which has dominated the national championships in both men’s and women’s sides, has gifted Viet Nam with stars including Tiep Rida, Trinh Nhan Duc, Na Ri, Trieu Khanh and Minh Luyen, who helped the men’s team win the championship.

Duc, 24, who trained in the sport from the age of five before joining the national team when he was 16, has been a key player of the national squad ever since. The playmaker could have played for a Thailand team after wowing the audience at an International Friendly Tournament in China five years ago but elected to stay at home.

However, basketball in Viet Nam, which is at an amateur level and ranks sixth among countries in the Southeast Asia region, has not attracted sponsors to fund the future development of the sport.

Meanwhile, the women’s team, which was started in 2000, dethroned the mountainous northern province of Yen Bai in 2005.

The youngsters from Soc Trang then took major positions in the national women’s team, which was long dominated by Yen Bai.

Lam Thu Hang, who won ‘Miss Beach’ in the final round of the Miss Viet Nam this year used to play basketball in the women’s Soc Trang team.

Hang, who stands at 1.76m, played for the team at the national championship for years before leaving the court.

Basketball has been one of favourite sports in the province along junk and traditional boat racing.

New regime

The Viet Nam Basketball Federation made the decision to help teams strengthen their squads competing in the championship last year by recruiting foreign players, which saw seven foreign players from the Philippines, China and Mongolia competing in the jerseys of Can Tho, HCM City and Joton.

“Contracting foreign players will make the league more attractive because they will create better competition between domestic and foreign players. Vietnamese players will also learn from the skills and experiences of imported basketballers,” said the Viet Nam Basketball Federation’s (VBF) general secretary, Nguyen Quoc Quan.

“The federation has an open policy that allows all teams to recruit more top foreign players at any time during the championship. The federation intends to increase the quality of the sport in Viet Nam through this policy,” he added.

Viet Nam’s best result to date was four years ago when the women’s team took a bronze medal - the first ever - at the Southeast Asian Basketball Championship in Singapore.

(Source: VNS)