Set realistic goal, women’s basketball squad told

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s chef de mission to the 2018 Commonwealth Games ( CG), Huang Ying How yesterday urged the national women’s basketball team to go for better results rather than a gold medal. Huang said instead of gold medal hunting, the squad should aim to improve their performance following their feat in defending the gold medal at 2017 Kuala Lumpur SEA Games ( KL2017).

“We want to see the team playing better from game to game. Set a realistic target and the squad will benefit from more achievable goals.

“There are eight strong teams in CG and I think they’ve done well to qualify. So once you already in, then you need to set a target to do better. So the last time we played CG we finished sixth if I’m not wrong, so let’s try to do better than that,” Huang told reporters after visiting the national women’s basketball squad training session at the Malaysia Basketbal l Association ( MABA) Stadium here, yesterday.

Meanwhile, team head coach Yoong Sze Yuin noted that there would be 10 conf irmed test matches during their two-week final training stint in Nagoya, Japan, starting from March 5 before heading for Gold Coast.

Yoong said she had set a semifinals berth target for her team at the Commonwealth Games despite being aware of the strength of countries in the same group such as India, New Zealand and Jamaica. The national women’s basketball squad ended their 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games campaign in seventh place among eight participating countries. — Bernama