FIBA Asia – Day 5 Round-Up: 20th FIBA Asia Champions Cup

JAKARTA (FIBA Asia Champions Cup) - With most of the quarterfinal slots spotted overnight and those assured of progress choosing to preserve their key players, Saturday’s proceedings at the 20th FIBA Asia Champions Cup, to a large extent, was rather predictable.

Hosts Satria Muda became the first Indonesian club to enter the quarterfinal stage of the Champions Cup in six years, with a 79-59 win over Young Cagers, India to close their Group B engagements followed by Zain’s mauling of Al Arabi of Qatar 94-62 to take the top place in the Group.

In Group A action, WABA champions Mahram overpowered Korean Army outfit Sangmoo 90-56 to roll into the quarterfinals with an unbeaten record after Smart Gilas enhanced their reputation with a rally-back 98-93 win over Kuwaiti league champions Al Qadsia.

Smart Gilas thus, with a 3-1 record, finished second behind Mahram in Group A.

Qadsia, who have lost all their four outings here, will now play against fellow Gulf rivals Al Wasl of UAE in a play-off for the ninth place.

Playing in front of the largest crowd so far at the Britama Arena after their vice president Mr. Yusuf Kalla opened the proceedings for the day, Satria did give their fans a few jitters, when their Indian opponents scored the first nine points of the game.

“I guess the players were a little nervous playing in front of a dignitary,” reasoned out Satria coach Fictor Roring.

Nakiea Miller converted a free-throw followed by fellow American Rashad Powell’s twin success from the foul-line to open the scoring for Satria as the hosts began to find their rhythm.

Young Cagers, who had already booked a place in the play-offs did take the fight to the rival camp, but an indifferent third quarter hampered their chances.

Miller returned another double-double with 33 points and 29 rebounds.

Powell 20 points and seven rebounds.

The hosts out-rebounded their rivals 57-29.

“I think we are improving as a team with every game. From now, it’s one game at a time. And it’s a play-off situation, anything can happen,” said Powell.

“I think we played alright especially against their imports,” said Young Cagers coach Aleksandar Bucan.

The last time any team from Indonesia had made the last eight grade was in 2003, when Aspac finished seventh at Kuala Lumpur. Satria’s previous best finish in the Champions Cup was ninth which they achieved at the 2000 edition at Beirut.

Satria finished second behind Zain, and ahead of Al Arabi and Young Cagers.

With a place in the quarterfinal already assured both Al Arabi and Zain chose to play percentage basketball and wound up the proceedings, keeping their players “fresh for the quarterfinals.”

“We wanted to keep the team for the quarterfinal,” said Arabi coach David Ingham.

“We play the Filipinos. We’re going to need to do a lot of running. I need all my players in peak shape,” said the Australian.

“We also tried that once we realized they are not playing full blast,” said Zain coach Mario Palma.

With only pride to play for Kuwaiti league champions Al Qadsia showed a lot of guts and gumption in their final Group A game against Smart Gilas.

But as has been their wont in the tournament so far, Smart Gilas, despite playing without of two of their key players rallied in the fourth quarter from a “confused” position to record a “confidence boosting” win.

“Their defense surprised us in the first two quarters,” said Smart Gilas coach Toroman Rajkov.

“And it took us time to rework our tactics, especially in the absence of Chris Tiu and CJ Giles,” he added.

“Even when I took the final time-out my message to the players was ‘we can either die like warriors or die like chickens.’ I’m proud my boys came out warriors,” Rajkov said.

Joseph Casio and Marnel Baracel led the Filipino charge. Baracel was 9/10 in field attempts in his 19 points and Casio had 21 points.

“We knew were out of the quarterfinals. But we wanted to go out with our heads held high,” said Qadsia coach Jordancho Davitkov.

Samad Nikkah didn’t even take to the court as Mahram coach Mostafa Hashemi – as in the previous three games – fielded all the players, each of them for more than 10 minutes at that.

Priest Lauderdale played less than half of the game time, that after not having played the first quarter at all.

Jackson Vroman increased his points tally in the tournament, with yet another game high 22 points.

Scores

Group A

Smart Gilas 98 (Joseph Casio 21, Marnel Baracel 19, Dylan Ababou 16) bt Al Qadsia 93 (Mike Harris 32, Joel Box 21). Quarterwise Scores: 16-31, 46-49, 69-76.


Mahram 90 (Jackson Vroman 22, Mehrad Atashi 14, Mahdi Kamrani 12) bt Sangmoo 56 (Byung Kyook Chung 13, Jung Kyu Chun 11). Quarterwise Scores: 22-13, 44-25, 69-35.

Group B

Satria Muda 79 (Nakiea Miller 33, Rashad Powell 20) bt Young Cagers 59 (Trideep Rai 18, Jagdeep Singh 18). Quarterwise Scores: 14-15, 31-30, 59-41.

Zain 94 (Wesam Alsoos 18, Enver Soobzokov 14, Roderick Riley 14, Mousa Awadi 11, Zaid Alkhas 10) bt Al Arabi 62 (Erfan Saeed 17, Khalid Abdi 11, Ali Ali 11). Quarterwise Scores: 20-19, 40-35, 70-47.

S Mageshwaran
FIBA Asia