TAIPEI CITY (Chinese Taipei) - Guam showed poise in the endgame to weather Thailand, 89-81, and resurrect their hopes of reaching the FIBA Asia Cup 2025, Thursday night at the University of Taipei Tianmu Gymnasium.
Jericho Cruz and Earnest Ross, Jr. were composure personified, nailing a total of six free throws inside the final 23.7 seconds of the match to douse water to a furious rally that witnessed the opposition storm back from a deficit as big as 21 points and chop it down to just an 83-79 gap with less than a minute left to play.
It was redemption done right by the team from the Pacific after suffering a humiliating 113-73 beatdown at the hands of Chinese Taipei in the Qualifying Tournament for Third-Place Teams' opening act some 24 hours ago, which put the latter just win away from advancing to the tournament proper set in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Now back in the hunt for one of the two remaining Asia Cup tickets via Group G, the crew will need the home team to beat the Southeast Asian side - and via sizable margin for good measure - on Friday to formalize their entry to the August 5-17 showpiece.
Game heroes: Cruz top-scored for Guam with 21 points, 3 rebounds, and 8 assists to lead a balanced attack, which, indeed, was a major improvement from Wednesday's game that saw Ross carry much of the load.
The wide-bodied forward was still as crucial in the triumph by finishing with 19 points, 9 rebounds, and 6 assists but he received ample support this time, much of course to his delight - and Coach EJ Calvo, too.
Ben Borja contributed 15 points and 7 rebounds, while Joseph Blas, Jr. went 3-of-4 from beyond the arc and ended up with 13 points as a total of four players finished in double figures in the victory against a team that missed the services of big man Martin Breunig, who was one of their key cogs back in the last two windows.
Mark Johnson, Jr. flirted with a double-double with 9 points and 8 rebounds to help his team assert mastery of the Thais, whom they beat in the Asia Cup 2025 Pre-Qualifiers in 2022 to complete a five-game sweep.
Turning point: Guam appeared to be coasting to the victory when they constructed a 68-47 lead during the third quarter, but the wards of Coach Edu Torres staged a comeback in the deciding chapter.
Anxious moments then filled the venue when star guard Freddie Lish and Nakorn Jaisanuk connected on back-to-back three-pointers and pulled Thailand to within just four points with 43.2 seconds remaining.
Momentum, however, came into a screeching halt for them when Moses Morgan questionably fouled Ross, which sent the latter to the line as they were in penalty already. Ross sank both to make it an 85-79 spread.
Thailand still managed to score quickly off a timeout courtesy of Chanatip Jakrawan with 22.2 seconds to go and tried to freeze the clock by fouling Ross, but had another perfect trip to push the lead back to six.
Cruz would go on to setlle the final count by going 2-for-2 as well from the stripe as Lish and their counterparts could no longer muster one final hurrah, eventually losing in their tournament debut.
Stats don't lie: Guam actually lost the rebounding battle, 49-42, but shot better from the field with a 43.5-percent clip. And the credit goes to the way they distributed the ball, as proven by their 24 assists.
They said: "It's always a good game when we play against Thailand - we've played them several times in the last few years ... I'm so happy and proud of my team for accomplishing this goal of winning this game, which was needed in order to give us a chance to qualify - for the first time in our island's history - for the Asia Cup. But obviously, we need Chinese Taipei to also take care of their job tomorrow and win one more game. So, we're rooting for Chinese Taipei at this time. But at least we can say we came here, we did our job and came away with one victory." - EJ Calvo, Head Coach, Guam
"Coming here, as we know, in our first game we got blown out by Chinese Taipei, so it was kinda hard for us. We had to regroup, we had to talk to all the guys that coming into this game, it's not gonna be easy. Because Thailand is hungry, the same as us. We knew it's gonna be hard fought for us. So we came in with the mentality of playing like it's our last game. That's what we came to do. The coaching staff really prepared us on what we should do, they did a really great job on that, and in bringing us together." - Jericho Cruz, Guard, Guam
"Congratulations to Guam. They were smarter than us. They played 2-3 zone for most of the game and they pased the ball very well, looking for spot-up shooters woth good percentages. I think we underperformed considering the way we've been playing so far. Maybe I didn't explain to them well what was at stake and we didn't play with the right energy to play such an important game like this." - Edu Torres, Head Coach, Thailand
"Like Coach said, congratulations to Guam for the win today. I feel like we didn't come out with enough energy. We were lackadaisical on defense, not being able to press the ball how we're supposed to. We just gotta be better in playing as a team and finish the game plan that coach laid out for us. But it was a tough loss for us. But we're gonna jump back." - Freddie Lish, Guard, Thailand
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