Chinese Taipei hired former San Antonio Spurs coach Bob Hill as a consultant to the National Team and the team has shown some remarkable discipline in their approach dropping games only to tournament favorites Iran and Korea en route to their third successive entry into the last eight. “We have a lot of work to do,” Hill said in an exclusive chat with this website after the team made the cut into the play-offs.

Iran forward Arsalan Kazemi came into this competition with loads of expectations and millions of hopes of resting on him to lead Team Melli to a three-peat in the FIBA Asia Championship. The Rice University student, however, is far from satisfied from the team’s performance in its quest for the automatic qualifying berth for the 2012 London Olympics. “We are certainly not playing at our best,” the 21-year-old told this website as Iran braced up for their “biggest challenge in the competition” against Korea.

Ghassan Sarkis is one livid and confused man. Livid for the way his team has been squandering chances and confused because it’s happening with “players who are capable and not novices.” “It’s becoming like a football game. Looks like we need to celebrate every goal. You can’t be scoring like handball and expect to win in basketball,” the coach who made a comeback at the helm of the Cedars after a gap of eight years told this website.

Zoran Zupcevic is back at the helm of affairs of the UAE National Team, this time as the National Teams director Mounir Ben Slimane put it “with a long term development plan.” “We started working towards at least finishing 12th here when we began our preparations,” both said in tandem before Zupcevic took stage.

Malaysia returned to the FIBA Asia Championship competition after a gap of six years and coach Goh Cheng Huat was quick to point “a lot of change.” “The competition has got deeper with so many teams, especially West Asia, growing in strength. The organizational facilities have gone a sea change. I think overall Asia has gone to the next step,” Goh told this website in an exclusive chat.