KB beat Shinhan Bank at home and recorded their first consecutive win after the season opened.
KB Stars, led by coach Kim Wan-soo, won 62-55 in a home game against Shinhan Bank Sbird in the 3rd round of Shinhan Bank 2022-2023 women’s professional basketball held at Cheongju Gymnasium on the 19th. After the opening of the season, KB fell into the worst slump with 2 wins and 11 losses in 13 games and lost face as a ‘defending champion’. (4 wins and 11 losses).
KB did not have a good sense of the outside shot, as its 3-point shot success rate was only 10.5% (2/19) that day, but it won the victory by targeting well under Shinhan Bank’s goal. In KB, Iseul Kang recorded 16 points, 10 rebounds and 3 assists, and Minjung Kim recorded 12 points, 4 rebounds and 2 steals, leading KB’s winning streak. And Park Ji-soo of the National Treasure Center, who stepped on the court for the first time after the opening of the season in the game against Hana One Q on the 17th, showed off his strong presence by recording 19 points, 7 rebounds and 1 block shot in 18 minutes and 25 seconds.
Following the overwhelming record of 25 wins and 5 losses in the regular league last season, KB won three consecutive victories over Woori Bank Woori WON in the championship match, easily winning the combined championship. Park Ji-soo, who recorded an average of 17 points, 17 rebounds and 5.3 assists in 3 championship games, swept the championship MVP following the regular league, opening wide the ‘Park Ji-soo era’ in WKBL. Considering the age of Park Ji-soo, who is only 24 years old, it seemed very likely that the era of Park Ji-soo would continue for a while if there were no health issues.
However, the health problem, which was Park Ji-soo’s only worry, came earlier than expected. Last August, a month before the Women’s Basketball World Cup to be held in September, Park Ji-soo was diagnosed with an early panic disorder and was excluded from the national team. Since panic disorder is not a physical injury that can be recovered through treatment or rehabilitation, it is a ‘mental disease’, so it was not possible to predict how long it would take to return after recovery. What is clear is that her team, KB, suffered huge losses due to Park Ji-soo’s departure.
In the end, KB started the 2022-2023 토토사이트 season without Park Ji-soo. Of course, even if Park Ji-soo is missing, KB is a team full of former and current national team players such as Kang I-seul, the best shooter in the league who has been ranked first in 3-point shooting for five consecutive seasons, Kim Min-jung, Huh Ye-eun, and Kim So-dam. It was a general expectation among basketball fans that it would be difficult to play solo like last season with Park Ji-soo, but with the experience of winning the championship, he would still be able to maintain a competitive power.
However, the gap of Park Ji-soo, who was the pillar of the team for KB, was much bigger than expected. KB’s attack is based on a tactic in which the ball is put into Park Ji-soo to gather the opponent’s defense, and then the vacant player aims for a shot. However, when Park Ji-soo left, KB’s game pattern was shaken to the root, and this was not a problem that could be overcome in a short period of time. It was also a big problem that the defense, where Park Ji-su reliably kept the base and the rest of the players were in charge of the perimeter, was shaken.
In the end, KB stayed at 2 wins and 11 losses in 13 games after the season opened, and fell into a situation where it was fighting for the lowest place with Hana 1 Q, let alone competing for the middle rank. In fact, KB was also the first victim of Hana 1 Q, who stayed at the 1st win of the season. KB, which played the role of the ‘grim reaper’ of other teams with an 83.3% win rate last season, has fallen into a neighborhood book struggling with a win rate in the 10% range because one Park Ji-soo is missing this season.
It was from the beginning of this month that a ray of hope began to be seen in KB, which seemed to have booked the worst season. After being diagnosed with panic disorder, Park Ji-soo, who had been concentrating on treatment, joined the team and began to appear on the bench. Although he could not play immediately, the fact that Park Ji-soo joined the team and was accompanied by his teammates was a great boost to KB. In fact, Park Ji-soo participated in team training and prepared for a comeback little by little.
Park Ji-soo, who watched his team KB fall to the bottom, stepped on the court for the first time after the season opened in a match against Hana 1Q on the 17th. Although it was a short time of only 7 minutes and 58 seconds, Park Ji-soo tried 4 shots to score his first points of the season and recorded 2 blocked shots, learning the feeling of the game. Above all, Park Ji-soo was able to digest the game without any burden because he participated in a situation where he had a certain amount of lead rather than a close match.
In the match against Shinhan Bank two days later, Park Ji-soo walked the court for a fairly long time, more than twice as long as the match against Hana 1Q on the 17th. Although he did not play as a starter and frequently went back and forth between the court and bench under coach Kim Wan-soo’s thorough management, it was definitely meaningful that he played more than 18 minutes, nearly half of the total game time. Park Ji-soo attempted 13 shots and succeeded in 8, scoring 19 points, the most for both teams (61.54% field goal success rate).
Park Ji-soo’s successful comeback means a lot not only to KB, but also to the league as a whole. This is because if Park Ji-soo increases his playing time little by little like now and gradually recovers his skills from last season, KB’s power can become incomparably stronger than in the first half. In fact, when Park Ji-soo was on the court, the eyes and confidence of the KB players seemed to go back to last season when they won the combined championship, not when they struggled in the bottom ranks with 2 wins and 11 losses.
Coincidentally, on the 22nd, KB will play the first game of the 4th round against Woori Bank, which is the opponent of last season’s championship match and dominates the league with 14 wins and 1 loss this season while Park Ji-soo is missing this season. Of course, since Park Ji-soo is not in the best condition yet, there is no reason to overdo it against Woori Bank, which boasts the strongest power. However, the fact that KB can recover the dignity of the ‘defending champion’ after Park Ji-soo’s return has already been proven through the first consecutive win of the season.