Jordan’s squad prepares for Asia Cup qualifiers

AMMAN — A few months after Jordan played at the basketball World Cup, the squad returns as it starts preparations for the upcoming qualifying journey to the 31st FIBA Asia Cup slated for Saudi in 2025.

Jordan will take part in a friendly tourney in Qatar which tipped off on Thursday where it will play Bahrain and Egypt in Group 2 in the tournament which groups Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Central African Republic in Group 1.

The Kingdom’s squad is preparing to start their Group D qualifiers for the FIBA Asia Cup when it hosts Palestine on February 23 before heading to Saudi to play its host in Jeddah on February 26 in the group which also includes Iraq.

A total of 24 teams are playing Round 1 qualification matches for the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup in three windows in February and  November 2024 and February 2025. Teams will also earn their place for the qualifiers for 2027 FIBA Basketball World Cup in Qatar alongside Qatar who automatically qualified as host. The top two teams of each group qualify for the final tournament and the six third-placed teams will play another qualifying tournament for the final four places.

Jordan qualified to the FIBA Asia Cup (previously FIBA Asia Championship) 16 times with their best performance finishing runner-up in 2011, when they reached the final for the first time, but lost the chance of qualifying to the 2012 Olympic Games after losing to China in the final 70-69. Jordan then played the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament but lost to Puerto Rico and Greece and were eliminated.

Jordan finished third in 2009 and fourth in 2022.  The team reached the quarters of the 2022 edition on Freddy Ibrahim’s dramatic half court three-pointer buzzer-beater to beat Chinese Taipei 97-96.  They then beat Iran in the quarters but lost to Lebanon 86-85 in the semis , and settled for fourth after losing to New Zealand.