Word By Jenny Yun-Chen Chang/ Taiwan
Photo By Danny Wang/ Taiwan
Taipei- As Taipei Municipal Song Shan Senior High School (SSSH) trying to bring home the second three-peat, one of their poster children, Chien-Hao “Riven” Ma, has set a higher goal for himself in senior year.
Ma is dubbed “The SSSH Kevin Durant” since he was the total package who is a sharpshooter that assists, guards the paint, shoots everywhere and slashes through the defense.
“Here in Taiwan,” Roman Huang, head coach of SSSH, said, “there aren’t many snipers who utilize constant off-the-ball movements. You know that I’ve been coaching for a long time, but I’d say I’ve never seen such power forward like Ma.”
Ma was selected to represent Chinese Taipei in the FIBA Asia Under-18 Championship in August, 2018. This experience increases his intake of basketball knowledge and therefore has different insight now.
“Most people there played U16 as well.” Ma said, “I could feel that it’s a much higher level stage. However, I also notice that Taiwanese performs better than other countries when we’re in high school, but westerners become much stronger when growing up, and it’s something we as a national team, can’t catch up.”
With such realization, Ma wants to focus on building up his muscles and strengths while he’s still getting taller and taller. It’s not only an anticipation for himself, but also a preparation for his dream studying abroad.
SSSH has been sending amazing players to NCAA including Szu-Yao “James” Sun at New York Institute of Technology (NYIT, Division II) and Oscar Kao at Southeast Missouri State University (SEMO, Division I).
Now in his senior year, of course Ma would like to follow his fellow seniors to pursue his dream. Language barrier is usually the factor stopping Taiwanese student athletes who want to study abroad, and it’s a tricky one because schools in the US take this into consideration. If players can’t understand the coach’s instruction, training can’t be effective, and not to mention having a normal, functional daily life far from home.
“My English isn’t good,” Ma said, “but I’m now taking an online English course three times a week, which is the same program Oscar Kao took.”
Handpicked by Ellen Lin, an English teacher and the wife of Coach Huang, the online program called “Side by Side” is one that guides beginners from scratch to high school level, which focuses on conversational abilities.
“It contains a bunch of local usages,” Lin said, “but it’s not elementary level. Ma actually has to pay much attention to catch up, which might be difficult for him, but he can get great personal satisfaction at the same time. Besides, it’s much more interesting than his textbooks.”
While Ma is working hard on learning languages, Lin isn’t worried about his first year in the US since Ma’s younger than most other students of his class year, it’s okay if he goes to prep school first. It could even be better for him to adapt the culture and training during the year.
Besides dealing with English ability, there are other missions for Ma to accomplish in his last year of senior high. As a whole, Coach Huang hopes that the players learn how to be a team and talk to each other more, and he has special plan for Ma.
Coach Huang pointed out that he’s taught Ma all the techniques, now it’s his turn to comprehend everything and upgrade himself. Huang especially hopes that Ma could improve his pick-and-roll ability.
Being dubbed as “SSSH Kevin Durant”, Ma has another idol, Chih-Chieh Lin, one of the most celebrated basketball players in Taiwan, who now plays at Chinese Basketball Association (CBA). When Ma was freshman in junior high, he started to watch Chih-Chieh Lin play, who has been a player Ma always looks up to.
“Chih-Chieh Lin is not the main reason I chose 12 as my number,” Ma said, “but it’s more or less related. And yes, Kevin Durant is also my role model now. Since senior high, coach has been encouraging me to do exactly the same thing Durant does. That’s his expectation of me.”
In his senior year, Ma wants to put most effort on improving his defensive tenacity. He’s the big fellow on the team, but he also plays point guard sometimes, he needs to know how to defend at every position.
“I’d say defensing the other team’s point guard is the most difficult,” Ma said, “because I need to lower myself a lot to do the job well. This and trying to do everything like Durant is my goal this year.”
Before Chien-Hao Ma heads for his brighter future in the US, he’s going to spend his last year in senior high to amplify his value and helping his team defending the crown. He may not become a one-and-done player like Kevin Durant, he’s hoping that he can start his NCAA journey after one year of prep school in the US.