What is to come has come. The two expected strong teams face each other on the best stage. Anyang KGC Ginseng Corporation, which ranks first in the professional basketball regular league, and Seoul SK, the ‘defending champion’, will face off in the championship match again this year.
The 2022-2023 SKT A-Dot Professional Basketball Championship Match (7 matches, 4 wins) opens with a confrontation between KGC and SK at the Anyang Indoor Gymnasium on the 25th.
The two teams that met in the championship match last season met again. It is the first time in 18 years that the same team faces two consecutive years in the championship match, and KGC and SK are the third all-time after Hyundai and Kia in 1998 and 1999 and KCC and TG Sambo in 2004 and 2005.
Last season, SK was 1st in the regular league, and KGC, who was in 3rd place, defeated 2nd place Suwon KT in the semifinal playoffs to advance to the championship match. SK won with 4 wins and 1 loss and won the combined championship.
It’s the exact opposite this season. KGC went straight to the quarterfinals as the 1st place in the regular league, beating Goyang Carrot with 3 wins and 1 loss, and embarked on a combined championship challenge. After defeating him by all means, he challenged KGC.
A strong team and a strong team met to determine the real champion. They also shared 3 wins and 3 losses against each other this season.
KGC reigned as the absolute strong this season. Compared to last season, there was a power leak, but he never came down from first place and won the regular league. Accurate outside shots led by foreign player Omari Spellman are also super strong under the goal, which veteran Oh Se-geun protects.
SK has no Choi Jun-yong. Last season’s regular league MVP Choi Jun-yong’s tall forward line was the key driving force behind SK’s being called the strongest. This season, Choi Jun-yong failed to recover after being ruled out due to a heel injury at the end of the regular season. SK head coach Jeon Hee-cheol, who played the playoffs without Choi Jun-yong, declared, “Unless a miracle happens, we will not see Choi Jun-yong in the championship game.”
However, SK continued to win even without Choi Jun-yong. Since March, they have not lost a single game and have won 15 consecutive wins메이저놀이터, including 9 wins in the regular league and 6 wins in the playoffs. Kim Seon-hyung and Jameel Warney have a strong one-two punch.
There is another return match within the return match between the two strong teams. It is a confrontation between Kim Seon-hyeong (SK) and Byun Jun-hyeong (KGC), the main scorers of the team. As senior and junior guards representing the league, the two competed fiercely for the best player (MVP) in the regular league this season. The championship was won by KGC, but the MVP was taken by Kim Seon-hyung of SK, the 3rd place team. Kim Seon-hyung was also the MVP of last season’s championship game. In this championship match, the competition with Byun Jun-hyeong was fierce again following the regular league.
Byun Jun-hyung recorded an average of 14.1 points and 5 assists in the regular league, and he continued to play an active role with 15.3 points and 4.5 assists in 4 playoff games in the semifinals. Kim Seon-hyeong recorded 16.3 points and 6.8 assists in the regular season, and showed tireless performance with 15.2 points and 7.5 assists in 6 playoff games in the 6th and 4th rounds. “It is a new challenge to rise from third place and win. It feels good,” he said with confidence.
KGC had excellent foreign player spellmen both inside and outside, but the best foreign player award was also given to SK Warney. Warney and Spellman competed for first and second place in the regular league scoring this year as well. In particular, Spellman suffered an injury at the end of the regular season last season and failed to take care of his body. Spellman, who gave SK the championship, pointed to SK as a rival from the beginning of this season, saying that he would avenge the loss.
SK coach Jeon Hee-chul, who made his debut as a commanding tower last season, immediately led the team to a combined championship and raised the championship this season as well, rising to the ranks of KBL’s young masters. Coach Kim Sang-sik, who led KGC, which was excluded from the championship candidates, to a ‘wire-to-wire championship’ in the first season, is determined to become the unified winning manager in the first year of his debut.