Championship 2023-2024 Season 12th win in career, overturning prospect of ‘heat wave’
It was the third game, 16 points behind in the second quarter, but at half-time, “Hey, let’s push this.”

Wi Sung-woo, head coach of Asan Woori Bank in women’s professional basketball, is nicknamed “The Great Man.”

Starting with raising Woori Bank from last place to first place in the 2012-2013 season, the coach’s debut season, he achieved six consecutive league wins, and won the 2014 Incheon Asian Games gold medal, 300 regular league wins, and eight championship games.

Therefore, fans nicknamed him “The Great Man,” which was conceived from director Wi Sung-woo’s “Sung” (姓), meaning “The Great Man.”

The 2023-2024 season championship match was another match in which coach Wi Sung-woo’s “greatness” shone.

Even before the start, all experts expected the dominance of Cheongju KB, the No. 1 regular league player with Park Ji-soo, but they overturned it in a good way and reached the top with 3-1 loss.

As a result, Woori Bank won its 12th championship game, the most in all four major professional sports in Korea. The record after Woori Bank is that the professional baseball Haitai Tigers and KIA Tigers have won the Korean Series 11 times.

Coach Wi, who has played to the point of exhaustion if he wins, said in an interview with Yonhap News at Woori Bank Gymnasium in Seongbuk-gu, Seoul on the 4th, “This is the most memorable win.”

Coach Wi compared, “The first victory in the 2012-2013 season is also indispensable, and it was a victory that I didn’t know anything about at that time, but if it was hard and touching, I think it’s the happiest victory this time.”

Coach Wi, who met KB in the championship game two years ago, but lost 0-3 without using his strength properly at the time, confessed, “I was worried about what I would do if I lost like that again this year.”

Coach Wi said, “Some predicted that we could lose 0-3 this year, but I still thought that we would win at least once,” adding, “Honestly, we were second in the regular league, so there was less pressure, and we aimed to play a fun game unlike two years ago.”

He also said, “I almost gave up Game 3, which was a watershed moment for the series by having one win and one loss.” KB led by 16 points in the second quarter of Game 3.

Coach Wi said, “KB passed the semifinal playoff more easily than we did, so the difference in physical strength seemed to come out from then on,” adding, “So if it gets a little bigger, I thought about throwing out the third game and focusing on the fourth game.”

However, he narrowed the game to 16 points to 12 points and ended the first half, and Coach Wi called on the players in the locker room to “Hey, let’s push this.”

Coach Wi said, “I thought it would be difficult if I tried until the third quarter and couldn’t catch up, but the players won 15 points in the third quarter and caught the game,” adding, “If we had done a better job managing the score in the third game at KB, we would not have been able to catch up and we would not have won in the end.”

Coach Wi’s prediction was that it was difficult to guarantee that he would advance to the playoffs before the opening of the season.

“I didn’t expect (Kim) Jung-eun to transfer to the FA (free agent), and (Park) Hye-jin joined just before the opening of the season,” he said, recalling the moment when he was at a loss, “Seung-hee (Yoo), who joined the team, hurt his knee in the first game.”

In particular, about Yoo Seung-hee, he said, “I never took a break from exercising because my team came, but I got hurt in the first game,” adding, “I have operated on the same area three times, so I will help him return slowly without overdoing it.”

Coach Wi Sung-woo said, “It’s already been 20 years since I retired and came to women’s basketball,” adding, “I won a lot and received a lot of benefits, but my team’s victory is important, but I hope that Korean women’s basketball will do as well as it used to be.”

Coach Wi, who said, “I will try to raise the players well and play many fun games like this championship in the league,” expressed expectations for the recovery of the international competitiveness of Korean women’s basketball, saying, “We need to take the opportunity to go to the Olympics when (Park) Ji-soo and (Park) Ji-hyun are good.”

A book with a highlighter stood out on the bench of Woori Bank’s gym, which was the site of the interview.

The title was “Winning,” which means “victory,” and the sub-headline was “How to win relentlessly in the ruthless race of life.”

Park Hye-jin, who interviewed with him, said, “You read that book underlined, but after practice, you talked about that book so much that the end time was delayed, so the players said, ‘I should hide that book somewhere’.” 슬롯머신