Player turned coach Daghles making immediate impact for Jordan

AMMAN (2016 FIBA Asia Challenge) - It's never easy for an incoming national team coach to make an immediate impact on his debut, but that's something that new Jordan coach Sam Daghles has managed to do.

One of Jordan's longest serving players (since 2003), Daghles decided to hang up his sneakers immediately after the 2015 FIBA Asia Championship in Changsha-Hunan, where Jordan finished a disappointing ninth.

However, a few months later the Jordanian Basketball Federation appointed Daghles as the new national team head coach and he was immediately given the task of preparing the team for the 2016 West Asia Basketball Association Basketball Tournament, the first step towards qualification for the 2017 FIBA Asia Cup.

"We had little time to prepare and we were missing many key players. But that's not an excuse, I made that clear to the players and I have to admit that they all worked extremely hard to get ready for WABA," the 36-year-old said.

Daghles is a basketball icon in his home country, and for good reason. He not only played a huge part in the development of basketball in Jordan, but also helped the national team become an Asian powerhouse after securing back-to-back podium finishes at the 2009 (bronze) and 2011 (silver) FIBA Asia Championships.

"I've been playing for Jordan for a long-time and most of the players were my teammates," he said. "I know them very well and I know what works and what doesn't work for them. This helped me a lot when I took over the team."

Jordan, as hosts of the West Asia Basketball Association Tournament, were among the favorites to clinch one of WABA's two available spots for the 2016 FIBA Asia Challenge, but nobody expected the team to perform the way it did.

Jordan finished second with an impressive 3-1 record, beating defending champions Lebanon, then Iraq and Syria. Despite qualifying for the 2016 FIBA Asia Challenge, Daghles says it would have been sweeter if the team had managed to win the tournament in front of the home fans in Amman.

"I'm happy and proud that we have accomplished our goal and qualified for the 2016 FIBA Asia Challenge," he said. "For that I want to thank the players and the coaching staff for working very hard, but I'm not completely satisfied because we wanted to win the WABA Championship."

With the FIBA Asia Challenge coming up in September in Iran, Daghles is confident that his team is on the right path, and that it can build on the momentum from WABA to achieve better results. The FIBA Asia Challenge is the first step towards qualification for the 2017 FIBA Asia Cup.

"I think we are on the right track now," he said. "We will conduct training camps abroad in the coming few weeks and months in order to improve more and be ready to take a shot at the Asia Challenge title."

FIBA