Our basketball team said goodbye to the Asian Cup held these days in Indonesia, after losing yesterday to Jordan (64-74) in the match of the third round of the first group stage of the tournament, which includes Saudi Arabia, Indonesia (host), Jordan and Australia.
Our team lost all their matches in the group stage as they were defeated in their first match against Indonesia (54-80), before losing to Australia last Thursday (52-76) and last Thursday to Jordan (74-64). . The tournament regulations stipulate that each group will play against each other in a segmented league system and from one stage, so that the group champion goes directly to the quarterfinals, and the second and third places in each group meet in a confrontation.
Going back to yesterday’s match, the first quarter was relatively even as Al-Akhdar performed well, backed by Muthanna Al-Marwani, Musab Al-Qadi, Fahd Bilal, Ayman Al-Maulid, Khaled Abdel-Jaber and Nasser Abu-Ghalas .
However, in the second quarter, Jordan managed to cut the ground from under Al Akhdar’s players, and penetrations from Al Hamarshi, Doueri, Fadi Ibrahim and Tucker from under the basket served as a source of increase in the difference, which ended the first half with a score of (39- 28).
In the third quarter, Jordan coach Wissam Al-Sou switched players and beat Malik Kanaan, Amin Abu Hawas and Muhammad Shaher to impose their advantage in light of the high concentration, and the Jordan team ended the third quarter. with a score of (59-43).
In the final quarter, Sami Baziah’s treble played a part in continuing the Jordanians’ progress and widening the lead to (66-48) before narrowing the lead to 15 points (67-52).
Thanks to the genius of Marwani, our team managed to close the gap to 10 points, bringing the score to (69-59), against the backdrop of a clear decline in the performance of Jordan’s players, but the Jordanian player Dowery outdid himself and increased the difference to 12 points before the match ended with Jordan’s victory (74-64).