TAIPEI CITY (Chinese Taipei) - Chinese Taipei had to take a longer and tiring route to the FIBA Asia Cup 2025, but nothing else should matter anymore now that they have finally reached their destination.
The proud program on Friday night are headed to the continental showpiece for the 19th successive time following a masterful 122-60 conquest of a dejected Thailand, in the process completing a two-game sweep of Group G in the Qualifying Tournament for Third-Place Teams at the University of Taipei Tianmu Gymnasium.
Well rested as compared to their Southeast Asian foes, the crew of Coach Gianluca Tucci wasted no time setting the tone, racing to a 24-9 lead before breaking the game wide open in the second quarter.
The Thais looked for answers but to no avail, eventually kissing their hopes of advancing goodbye as they finished with two losses in as many outings - the first an 89-81 result at the hands of Guam about 24 hours ago.
All that they could do was witness the home team celebrate in triumph as they made sure to reach the Asia Cup yet again, helping as well the team from the Pacific make it to the tilt for the first time ever.
Following Friday's result, half of the four remaining tickets to the August 5-17 conclave to be held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia have been booked, with the other two to be fought for by Iraq, Bahrain, and India over at Group H which begins action late Friday night at the Khalifa Sports City in Manama with a meeting between Iraq and India.
Game heroes: Ma Chien-Hao led Chinese Taipei with 20 points on an excellent 6-of-10 shooting from three-point distance and 7 rebounds off the bench in the win that saw all 12 players score at least 3 points.
Lu Chun-Hsiang delivered 16 points, half of which he collected from the free throw line by going a perfect 8-for-8. Mohammad Al Bachir Gadiaga, who starred in their 113-73 rout of Guam, supplied 14 points.
Brandon Gilbeck came through with a double-double of 12 points and 15 rebounds while Chen Ying-Chun prodiced 10 points and 10 assists as a total of five players finished in double figures in the wire-to-wire win.
Turning point: The Thais were actually keeping in step when they got to within three pints, 7-10, behind Nattakarn Muangboon early in the game, but that proved to be the closest they could ever get.
Gilbeck and Lu joined hands to spark 14-2 response towards the aforementioned lead and the visiting side could no longer keep up, with the first quarter closing with Chinese Taipei holding a 29-12 advantage.
The game would never be in question since, with Chinese Taipei pouring at least 30 points in the next three quarters on the way to wrapping up this qualifying stage with another massive rout.
Stats don't lie: The victors made 19 threes, the most by any team in the Asia Cup 2025 Qualifiers, on the way to registering the second-most points since the new qualifiers system was implemented.
They said: "Finally we can celebrate. This is a very important goal for us. We get a place that we deserve to get among the best 16 teams of Asia. This is the moment to enjoy and to collect every kind of positive vibes around the national team because I'm really proud of every single representative of this team. Not only the players who played ... when I came into this journey as a head coach, I rotated 21 players, so I want to say thanks also to the players who didn't play today--not only the 12 but the nine more players that helped build this very nice team that we have. As I told you many times, the national team is a process and everybody has a part. I'm really proud to lead this team of unbelievable and amazing people." - Gianluca Tucci, Head Coach, Chinese Taipei
"It's hard to summarize the game. We haven't ben ourselves this couple of days. It's hard to explain the way we played. Before those two games, we had an amazing run. But the truth is, we underperformed this couple of days and today, like when you realize yesterday we lost a big chance, mentally and physically we did not prepare ourselves in the proper way to face this game. Chinese Taipei was a little bit fresh because of the day-off and we weren't. Some guys couldn't play today so it was a combination of so many different things ... really bad game for us." - Edu Torres, Head Coach, Thailand
FIBA