Strong Group Athletics’ (SGA) bid for a title defense will be put to an early test as it battles Chinese Taipei-A in the opening salvo of the 44th William Jones Cup at the Xinzhuang Gymnasium in New Taipei City on Sunday.

Tip-off will be at 7 p.m. with SGA looking to post a strong start against the members of the Chinese Taipei national squad.

SGA coach Charles Tiu said beating this year’s Taiwanese squad will be easier said than done as they will be bannered by 6-foot-9 forward Joof Alasan as well as US National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I talents in 6-foot-5 Robert Hinton of Harvard Westlake School and 6-foot-5 Adam Hinton of Cornell University.

“I wish we had an extra game to prepare for them. They’ve already had a bit of a warm-up game, but we’ve been following them closely,” Tiu said.

Aside from that, Chinese Taipei, which will also feature a core of Mohammad Al Bachir Gadiaga, Chien-Hao Ma, Chun Hsiang Lu, and naturalized player Brandon Gilbeck, defeated Gilas Pilipinas, 84-91, last February in the FIBA Asia Cup Qualifers, prompting Tiu to speculate that they are headed for a dogfight.

“We saw how they played Gilas — they’ve really improved so much. And they have the homecourt advantage, which is definitely a factor,” Tiu, a former Gilas assistant coach under Rajko Toroman, said.

“Their core has been solid and playing together for over a year. I expect this to be a much tougher game than last year because they’re just better now, plain and simple.”

With the Jones Cup featuring a single-round robin format, the outcome of the match between Chinese Taipei-A and SGA will pretty much dictate the momentum of the tournament.