Finals preview: Japan, Korea lock horns with FIBA U18 Asian Championship 2022 crown at stake

TEHRAN (Iran) - Japan and Korea have the chance to end their years-long quests for gold as they battle for all the marbles in the FIBA U18 Asian Championship 2022 Final on Sunday night at the Azadi Basketball Hall.

The game is at 18:00 p.m. local time, with two of the most exciting teams of the tourney fittingly slugging it out for the gold to cap off the continental youth showpiece's successful return after years of delay due to the pandemic.

The East Asian rivals are having similar campaigns to one another -- both started their tournaments successfully last Monday, lost the very next day, and then rebounded come the playoffs to eventually reach the finale.

First to book the trip to the title bout were the Koreans following their come-from-behind win over China in the Semi-Finals, 89-85, on Friday night.

There, they rallied back from as much as 19 down on the way to not just getting payback for that beatdown they received in the preliminaries, but also beating the young Team Dragoon for the first time in the Asian U18 tilt.

Leading the way in that win that led to their first Asian U18 Final trip in a decade was the troika of Lee Juyeong, Kang Sungwook, and Lee Chaehyung as they came through in the end to complete the 19-point comeback.

Korea, as a whole, are actually leading in some of statistical categories -- from three-point shooting with a 33.1-percent clip, to assists with 23.3 a game, and to even steals with a 20.5 to be the only team to reach 20 per outing.

They surely impose a major threat to the Japanese, but the latter is coming off a character-testing affair of their own after beating familiar foes Lebanon by way of an 80-67 result in the semis to arrange the gold medal duel.

Unlike in their Group Phase encounter that saw them in control of the match basically the entire game, the Akatsuki Japan needed to fend off the young Cedars as they got to within two after being down 16 early.

Hayato Wakugawa, Hiyuu Ozawa, and Yuto Kawashima were the trio that helped keep the opposition away, with all of them knocking free throws to eventually put the game away and punch the last coveted ticket.

And definitely, all the aforementioned players are set to step up to the plate in the much-anticipated clash, motivated to help their respective sides reign supreme and etch their names in the annals of youth basketball.

The two nations are set to face off one another for the first time ever in the Asian U18 Championship, with Korea looking to bag home gold medal no. 4 while Japan are out to give the program only their second title.

Meanwhile, Iran and the Philippines will be duking it out in the fifth-place game of the Classification Phase, which takes place prior to the bronze medal game between multiple-time champs China and Lebanon.

The final game day of the event will again feature a total of four matches, with Chinese Taipei and Qatar opening things up for the seventh-place tiff.

FIBA