HONG KONG, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) -- Chinese men's basketball team were well beaten by the South Koreans 91-59 in the semifinals at the East Asian Games here on Tuesday.

    It was the worst defeat handed by the South Koreans in three decades and Chinese leading portal Sina.com called it "the most shameful defeat in 35 years".

    China were off to a slow start in each of the first two quarters, unable to stave off their opponents' fast breaks, which left them trailing by 22 points into the second half.

    China seemed to be coming back in the beginning of the third quarter as they played a 8-2 surge to put the score at 56-36 but the South Koreans gave Chinese counterparts a hard time attacking and never looked back to win the ticket to the final.

    "We had some problems in our defence," Zhang Qingpeng simply said.

    China pulled off no less rebounds than their opponents, 40 to South Korea's 36, but also made more mistakes as they had 24 turnovers to South Korea's 11.