May 18, 2009

Written by: Ed Odeven
Sports writer, The Japan Times

Chris Ayer helped the Ryukyu Golden Kings of the Basketball Japan League win the 2008-09 championship on Sunday in Tokyo.

Ayer scored 17 points, grabbed nine rebounds and blocked two shots in Ryukyu's 89-82 victory over the Tokyo Apache before a crowd of 9,358 at Ariake Colosseum.

"I'm happy," said Ayer, who attended Flowing Wells High School in Tucson and Loyola Marymount University. "It's not very often you finish the season with a win. It's really exciting to win the championship. It's my first championship since high school so it's exciting."

Ayer spent the previous two seasons playing for the bj-league's Oita HeatDevils, another Western Conference team. Oita fired Dai Oketani as head coach after the 2007-08 season. Ayer then joined Oketani with the Okinawa-based team and averaged 13.2 points per game this season.

The Golden Kings, only in their second season and coming off a 10-34 campaign, won their first 12 games this season and had a league-best 41-11 record.

The b-league began play in the fall of 2005 with six teams. This season, there were 12 teams in the league, with a six-team Eastern Conference and a six-team Western Conference.