Hunter's Boomers edge Korea in Bendigo

The Australian Boomers, featuring Sydney Kings' Jordi Hunter, have survived a scare in their opening game of FIBA Asia Cup qualifying by erupting in the fourth quarter to register a come-from-behind 85-71 win against South Korea.

Australia, also containing David Hillard as team physio, trailed by two points at three-quarter time but scored 32 points in the final term to emerge as 14-point victors. South Korea was in the lead for almost 30 minutes of the clash, but the Boomers’ slaloming final quarter meant the reigning Asia Cup champions were prevented from a surprise defeat.

The Boomers even trailed by as many as six points with just six minutes to go, but triples from Josh Bannan and DJ Vasiljevic pulled the game back to a tied score and ended the clash with a 30-10 run.

Bannan registered an 11-point, 11-rebound double-double on his Boomers debut, while Vasiljevic had a team-high eight assists to complement his 14 points.

Veteran forward and Olympic bronze medallist Nick Kay led the scoring for the Boomers with 21 points, while debutant Hunter started and produced two points and four rebounds.

Ra Gun-ah was an irresistible force in the paint for South Korea and was their only double-digit scorer for the game. He matched Kay’s 21 points and also pulled down 14 rebounds – six of which were offensive.

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"I just really enjoyed the group," said Boomers coach Brian Goorjian - who coached the Kings to three championships in the early 2000s.

"There’s been an energy and excitement and appreciation of wearing the green and gold.

"We knew coming into this game that it was gonna be patchy on the offensive end since you only got a couple of days together. I told them afterwards, I like the way they won.

"I thought we got some contributions from guys like Ben Henshaw, who hasn’t played in the NBL virtually, hasn’t played many minutes, and it was an important game for us.

"This is one of the teams that are the big ones. We got a lot of contributions from a lot of people."

Australia’s next opponent, Indonesia (in Jakarta on Sunday, February 25), suffered a 17-point defeat in their opening qualifier to Thailand.