Superb Qatar cruises into quarters

CHANGSHA China: Qatar overcame an early deficit and beat Korea 69-63 yesterday to clinch a spot in the quarter-finals of the FIBA Asia Championship.

The Koreans coming off an 85-71 triumph over Lebanon scored the game’s first eight points and led 12-2 but Qatar controlled the tempo and fought their way back taking a 35-31 advantage to half-time.

Getting 16 points from their 33-year-old centre Mohd Mohamed and solid contributions from Ali Saad Trey Johnson (both15pts) and Khalid Suliman Abdi (10pts) Qatar had the balanced scoring attack they needed. Qatar also had good overall good defense on the Korean shooters who made just six of 25 (24 percent) from long range.

Korea needed just a minute and 20 seconds to trim a 64-54 deficit to 64-62 with 3:14 remaining after back-to-back three-balls from Seounghyun Lee and Yang Donggeun and a jumper from Jonghyun Lee. But Johnson stopped the comeback in its tracks with a jump shot to make it 66-62 with 2:24 to go. Korea scored just one more point the rest of the way. Qatar had a lot of firepower coming off the bench with their reserves outscoring those of Korea 41-10.

Mohamed came up big in the 2:45 of the fourth quarter scoring 10 of his team-high 16 points in the game to turn a 50-48 deficit into a 58-52 advantage for Qatar. The team used that burst of points as a platform for victory.

Qatar controlled the rhythm of the contest playing at a slower pace. Nineteen of their 48 rebounds came on the offensive glass which limited Korea’s running game. Korea will be looking to overcome Kazakhstan to boost their hopes of quarter-finals.

Meanwhile Jordan defeated Kazakhstan 87-73 to set up a do-or-die game with WABA rivals Lebanon today.

Alex Legion had 23 points and five assists while Zaid Abbas finished with 13 points 10 rebounds and four steals for the Jordanians who will next square off against the Lebanese with a spot in the quarter-finals at stake.

Their 0-3 record in Group F means the Kazaks have no chance of advancing to the next stage of the competition even if they were to beat Korea on Tuesday.

Kazakhstan fought Jordan hard but began to lose the initiative late in the first half.

Trailing 38-35 Vitaliy Strebkov’s team fell further behind after jump shots from Sam Daghlas and Ali Jamal Zaghab and two free-throws from Daghlas.

The Kazaks got no closer than seven points the rest of the way. THE PENINSULA