MANAMA (Bahrain) - India put one foot in the FIBA Asia Cup 2025 following a 97-77 victory over Iraq as the Qualifying Tournament for Third-Place Teams continued on Friday night at the Khalifa Sports City.
The team from South Asia took the lead for good in the second quarter after a 30-all tie in the game's first 10 minutes before pulling away in the third canto toward a rousing start to their campaign.
With the convincing triumph, India simply need to win their final game against Bahrain on Saturday night to complete a sweep of Group H and, more importantly, to formally advance to the tournament proper.
The no. 3 team of Group E from the Qualifiers' First Round is shooting for their 11th consecutive appearance in FIBA's flagship event in Asia, which is set to hold its 31st edition in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on August 5-17.
Game heroes: Muin Bek Hafeez led India with 17 points behind a quintet of threes and 6 rebounds. Pranav Prince flirted with a double-double as the athletic winger finished with 12 points and 9 rebounds with 4 assists.
Harsh Dagar supplied 13 points on three triples and 6 assists, while Arvind Krishnan went a perfect 4-for-4 from beyond the arc for 12 points. Palpeet Singh Brar and Arvinder Singh added 11 and 10 points, respectively.
Turning point: Sandu and Krishnan opened the second quarter with five consecutive points for the 35-30 lead and they would remain in the lead since, taking a 44-38 advantage entering the halftime intermission.
But it wasn't until the third where they'd break away. The trio of Prince, Palpreet Singh Brar, and Hafeez joined hands for a 10-2 run toward a 54-40 lead with 5:50 to go, setting up a huge 32-point eruption.
The middle quarters witnessed India pour 46 points while limiting the opposition to only 22, including just 8 in the second frame, to establish a 76-57 lead entering the final frame - a lead too insurmountable for the Iraqis.
Stats don't lie: Coach Scott Flemming's charges sank 16 treys, using the three-ball as a weapon toward another impressive W like what they did against Kazakhstan last November, where they nailed 15.
Overall, they shot 52.1-percent from the floor mainly behind their 22 assists in a solid distribution of the ball that enabled a total of 10 players contribute at least a point as they beat their former mentor in Veselin Matic.
They said: "Obviously I'm pleased with the outcome, but even more so how we played. Some strong points: we had 22 assists and only eight turnovers. That was a big goal of ours. I told them under 14 but we only had one at halftime so that was big that we handled the ball against their pressure. We hit 16 threes and that's what we do well, we try our best to get people open and shoot threes. We need to rebound the ball a little better but overall, I thought we played a great game. And, we played well in every quarter." - Scott Flemming, Head Coach, India
"What can I say? I can only say my congratulations to India ... We shot very bad with our free throws and for the other side, the third quarter decided the game. They won by 13 points. At the beginning of the third quarter they started to come up, and after that, the game was over." - Veselin Matic, Head Coach, Iraq
FIBA