Women’s Basketball Park Shin-Ja Cup to be held on the 31st… First appearance of Japanese players in Asian quota

The 2024 Woori Bank Park Shin-ja Cup, which will provide a glimpse into the 2024-2025 women’s professional basketball season, will open on the 31st at the Yi Sun-shin Gymnasium in Asan, South Chungcheong Province.

A total of 10 teams will participate in this competition, which will be held until September 8, including six teams from the Women’s Korean Basketball League (WKBL), Japan’s Toyota, Fujitsu, Hitachi, and Taiwan’s Cathay Life.

The competition format is to divide the teams into two groups and play a round robin, and then the top two teams from each group advance to the semifinals, where a single-elimination match is held to determine the winner. The prize money for the winner is 30 million won.

Group A consists of Asan Woori Bank, Cheongju KB, Busan BNK, Hitachi, and Toyota, while Group B consists of Yongin Samsung Life, Incheon Shinhan Bank, Bucheon Hana Bank, Cathay Life, and Fujitsu.

The Park Shin-Ja Cup, which was founded in 2015, was previously a competition focused on discovering promising players, with each team’s starting players not participating. However, starting last year, all players were allowed to participate, regardless of whether they were starting players or their age.

Courtesy of WKBL, Yonhap News Photo

The focus of this year’s competition will again be on the skills of the Asian quota players, which will be introduced for the first time in the 2024-2025 season.

The WKBL will introduce the Asian quota system starting from the 2024-2025 season, and has opened its doors to Japanese players for now.

In the Asian Quarter Draft held in June of this year, a total of 9 players were selected, including Japanese national team member Rika Tanimura, who was selected first overall by Shinhan Bank.

Tanimura will likely miss this tournament due to a knee injury, but it will be interesting to see how other Japanese players can bring some energy to the court.

In the rookie draft held on the 20th, Shinhan Bank selected Japanese-Korean Hong Yu-sun as the first overall pick, and KB selected Reiri Okakuchi in the second round, increasing the presence of Japanese players on the WKBL court for the 2024-2025 season.

Players selected in the rookie draft can also play in this year’s Park Shin-ja Cup.

The national team players who returned home on the 28th after playing in the pre-qualifying tournament for the 2026 International Basketball Federation (FIBA) World Cup held in Mexico are expected to have their playing time determined depending on their condition.

Last year, Japan’s Toyota won the tournament by defeating Woori Bank in the final, and will be aiming for a second consecutive championship this year.

This year’s opening match will be held on the 31st at 2 PM between Woori Bank and Hitachi.

Major matches will be broadcast on KBS N Sports, and all matches will be broadcast live on YouTube, Yeonong TV, Naver Sports, and Kakao TV.