Jordan plays Malaysia for spot in FIBA U16 Asian Championship quarters

AMMAN – Jordan’s U16 men’s basketball team has moved to Round 2 of the  7th FIBA U16 Asian Championshipcurrently underway in Qatar which will qualify the top four teams  to the FIBA U17 Basketball World Cup set for Turkey in 2024.

Jordanfinished second behind New Zealand in the group and moved to play Malaysia on Thursday.The winner of the match will advance to play Australia in the quarters.

The Kingdom openedtheir Group C matches beating Bahrain85-44 before losing toNew Zealand 119-45 and overcoming South Korea 62-59.

Group winners automatically moved to the quarters; Australiafrom Group A,Japan from Group B,New Zealand from Group C and China from Group D.

In the quarters set for Friday, the Jordan vs Malaysia winner will play Australia, the Philippines vs Korea winner will play Japan, India vs Qatar winner will play New Zealand, and the Iran vs Lebanon winner will play China.

This is Jordan’s third time at the event. They  finished 8th in their first participation in 2009 and 10that the third edition in 2013.

China were champs in 2009, 2011 and 2013; South  Korea in 2015; Australia in 2017 and 2022. 

Meanwhile, Jordan’s senior national teamhas been drawn to play in Group D alongside Iraq, Palestine and Saudi Arabia in qualifiers for the FIBA Asia Cup 2025.

Jordan has now reached the FIBA Asia Cup (previously FIBA Asia Championship) 16 times, with the best showing runner-up in 2011, third in 2009 and fourth in 2022.

Jordan last reached the FIBA Asia Cup semis for the second time in 2022, and eventually settled for fourth place. 

The team is now gearing up for the upcoming 19thAsian Gamesset for September 23-October 8 in Hangzhou, China,where they will play in Group C alongside Thailand, Bahrain and the Philippines.

Fans hope the team will jump back and obtain an advanced placement at the Games after failing to score a single winatthe recently concluded 19th FIBA World Cup, where they finished 32nd and last.

The basketball squad has been the only Jordanian team to reach a World Cup in a team sport alongside the junior men's team in 1995.In their record, they havequalified to the basketball World Cup three times - 2010, 2019 and 2023.  In 2010, Jordan finished 23rd among 24 countries after losing all 5 matches. In 2019, Jordan managed a win over Senegal  to finish 28th among 32 nations ,and in this latest edition finished last at 32nd .

The FIBA World Cup, won by Germany, served as a qualifier for the HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Summer_Olympics" \o "2024 Summer Olympics"2024 Summer Olympics, where the top two teams from each of the Americas and Europe, and the top team from each of Africa, Asia and Oceania, qualify alongside the tournament's host France.