Asghar Kardoust. This is the most spoken about name in Iranian basketball these days ever since coach Veselin Matic announced his intentions to utilize the Azad University center as a back-up for Iran’s only NBA player Hamed Hadadi in the forthcoming 2010 FIBA World Championship.

“The coach told us during the half-time: ‘They have five basketball players; we have five; we are equal. Give it your best shot’. And the boys responded exactly,” was Mohammed Majdi’s opening reaction after playing a stellar role in Iraq’s momentous victory over fellow West Asian nation and the much more fancied Iran on Tuesday.

Takuya Kawamura is gradually attaining the status of the leader of the Japanese resurgence. The 24-year-old tested waters in the NBA Summer League last season, and didn’t find much luck, but ever since then he joined the National Team program and gone on to become a very important cog in the wheel of revival rolled out by the highly respectable American coach Tim Wisman.

The basketball mandarins of Chinese Taipei brought about a decision early this year to hand over the reins of the National Team to the coach of the club that wins the Taipei League. And as a result, Zhang Xueli, who donned the Chinese colors at the 1988 Seoul Olympics was handed the charge of taking the team forward.

Targuy Ngombo is for sure one of the hot youngsters on the FIBA Asia circuit. The 21-year-old began the competition here setting a tournament-high standard of 39 points against Syria and followed it up with a 24-point effort to take Qatar past the more fancied Jordan, and for the second win in as many days. “I’m happy as long as I am contributing to my team’s cause,” said the youngster in a quick chat with this website following Sunday’s win over Jordan.