From Ballislife reel to Pre-Qualifiers, Ricky Yang aims to put Hong Kong basketball on the map

BENGALURU (India) - There isn’t an exact formula to make a basketball highlight go viral. Sometimes it’s the absurdity of how the play was completed. For some occasions, it’s the display of extreme athleticism from the plater.

Sometimes, it’s the situations under pressure of the sequence that makes the viewer wonder how that play could be pulled off. Many times, it’s something as simple as the celebration prior to the play that’s made.

In the case of Ricky Yang’s buzzer-beater in the HKBA playoffs, it was a little mix of everything. And it was enough to get the highlight posted on the social media outlet Ballislife.

 

The highlight post already has over 128,000 likes and has been viewed over 1.2 million times on Instagram. Not every Ballislife video tops the magic number of a million views, but this highlight from the Hong Kong national team rising star has cleared the threshold.

Ricky Yang never expected the play to be featured this heavily and for it to go viral. He was just a determined baller looking to make the best play for his team.

"I’m speechless for sure, Never expected to be on Ball is Life. It’s super exciting that local basketball can be captured on such a worldwide social media platform," said the 24-year-old.

The reactions in the comment section of the post were, as they say, "lit".

"Yooo that jump up had to be practiced… 🔥"
"Elevation on that shot was OD!"
"Bro went from prone to mid air in 6 nano seconds"

But there was one comment that stood out the most:

"There’s hope in Hong Kong 🇭🇰 Basketball🔥🔥🔥"

That there might be the most important take from this entire ordeal. Even if by the slightest bit, it’s helped put Hong Kong basketball on the map.

"I wish it could bring some attention to Hong Kong basketball for sure and I hope it will be more than a sparkle," said Yang.

That will be Yang and Hong Kong’s quest here at the upcoming First Round of the FIBA Asia Cup 2025 Pre-Qualifiers in Bengaluru, India where they will go up against Singapore and Guam. It’s been a long while since the national team has been in action at the Asia Cup 2022 Qualifiers, so the return to the court for Yang and his teammates is much anticipated.

"This is the moment that we’ve been waiting for so long, the pandemic leaded us to nowhere in the past years. And we are ready for the upcoming Pre-qualifiers."

 

They should be both ready and highly motivated to perform in these upcoming games. Hong Kong’s previous run through the Asia Cup Qualifiers might have left a bit of a bitter taste, especially for the players that were on the squad like Yang himself.

Two of Hong Kong’s three games at the Qualifiers were against Guam - an opponent they’ll be facing here at the Pre-Qualifiers - where they lost by 20 and 46 points respectively. The other game was against Australia where they lost 115-52.

The results kept Hong Kong out of the Asia Cup for only the third time in the history of 30 editions of the competition.

Still, Yang urges the fans to be patient as the team transitions to a new era. Many of the seasoned veterans are now retired, with younger players like Yang and Yuet Yeung "Simba" Pok expected to have bigger roles.

But the message from Yang is for the fans to keep cheering them on.

"I hope our fans will keep on the ultimate support to us as we will definitely give our best shot in the upcoming games. We are hungry for these international games."

FIBA