Jordan advances to basketball semifinals

AMMAN — Jordan beat Saudi Arabia 76-57 on Tuesday to advance to the semifinals of the basketball competition at the 19th Asian Games currently underway in Hangzhou, China.

In other quarterfinals, the Philippines edged Iran 84-83 and China beat Korea 84-70, while Japan lost to Taipei 85-66.

In the semis, Jordan will meet Chinese Taipei while China plays the Philippines.

In classification matches for 5-8th places, Iran will play Korea and Saudi Arabia takes on Japan.

In its quarterfinal win, Jordan seemed impressive with a 17-0 lead in the first quarter which ended 25-6. The coach enlisted most bench players in the match as star Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Ahmad Dweiri, as well as sharp-shooter Sami Bza’I, were given some rest time as John Bohannon, Hashem Abbas, Ahmad Hamarsheh, Malek Kana’an and others built on the first quarter 25-6 lead to end half-time  42-27.

Hollis-Jefferson, Dweiri and Bza’i combined to end the third quarter 65-36.

The fourth quarter saw Bza’i continue with his sharp-shooting three pointers as Jordan kept their lead 70-43 with Ahmad Hammouri getting play time and scoring a three pointer in the final half minute. As Jordan’s bench got some play time, Saudi Arabia struggled to catch up and led the fourth quarter, but failed to advance.

The squad just played their third World Cup after previously reaching the world’s premier event in 2010, 2019 with basketball being the only Jordanian team sport to reach a World Cup.While in the FIBA Asia Cup (previously FIBA Asia Championship) — Jordan has qualified 16 times, with the best showing runner-up in 2011, third in 2009 and fourth in 2022 after they reached the semis for the second time. 

With the Games heading into the final stretch, all eyes are on the basketball team, after Jordan only secured 3 medals — all in taekwondo —two silvers by Saleh Sharabati (U80kg) and Zaid Mustafa (U68kg), and one bronze by Zaid Halawani (U63kg). Sharabati, the Tokyo Olympics silver medalist, now ranked 3rd in the world is eyeing the  Paris Olympics 2024.

The Kingdom’s  delegation includes 79 athletes competing in  15 sports: Archery, athletics, badminton, basketball, boxing, fencing, golf, gymnastics, ju-jitsu, karate, shooting, taekwondo, weightlifting, triathlon and e-games.

The Games which run until October 8 and have 12,000 athletes from 45 countries competing,So far, China, Japan and Korea dominate the medals table. Arab countries on the medals table are led by Bahrain (11), Qatar (7), Kuwait (6), Saudi Arabia (4), UAE (6), Jordan (3),  Oman, Iraq and Lebanon (1).

Since first competing in 1986, it is Jordan’s 9th time at the Asian Games where out of 45 medals won previously by Jordan (5 gold, 16 silver and 24 bronze), 38 have been secured through martial arts (24 in taekwondo, 9 in karate, 5 in ju-jitsu( in addition to 4 in boxing, 1 wrestling and 1 in body building.

Jordan won its first gold at the 2006 Doha Games by taekwondo fighter Mohammed Al Bakhit andin 1998, Alaa Kotkot became the first Jordanian woman to win a medal- a silver  in taekwondo.

Total overall medals at the past Games for Jordan were: Seoul 1986 (4), Hiroshima 1994 (3), Bangkok 1998 (5), Busan 2002 (2), Doha 2006 (8), Guangzhou 2010 (6), Incheon  2014 (4),  Indonesia 2018 (12).