COACH Charles Tiu believes Gilas Pilipinas is favored to beat Jordan when they face off on Aug. 28 in the FIBA World Cup 2027 Asian Qualifiers second round at the SM Mall of Asia Arena.
Fresh off guiding Strong Group to a 96-91 win against Jordan on Friday night to settle for fifth place in the William Jones Cup in Taipei, Tiu noted that the West Asian squad’s main weapons include veteran big man Ahman Al-Dwairi and naturalized player Jalen Harris.
But the concurrent Phoenix head coach said the Jordanians are not in the level of East Asia squads like China, Korea or Japan in terms of outside shooting.
“Actually, watching them [play] the first few games of the [Jones Cup] tournament, I thought Gilas would have a walk in the park. But they got better and better,” Tiu told The Manila Times.
“Jalen Harris will be a difficult challenge. [But] I trust coach Tim Cone though, and he will figure it out,” added the Filipino bench tactician, whose team ended the tournament with a superior 6-1 record overall, but due to a controversial format that seeded Chinese Taipei-Blue to the semifinals, Strong Group saw its three-peat bid come to an end.
“[But] definitely, we’d be favorites for sure.”
Tiu shared that Cone and his assistant coaches now have a lot of pregame preparation materials to work on because Jordan joined the Jones Cup.
“It’s good they have a lot of games from the Jones Cup to scout Jordan,” he said.
“They’re OK, but [they are] not the best three-point shooting team. Not at the level of the East Asian teams but they do have shooters.”
On the other hand, Cone said he would have wanted to see Jordan play at full strength in the annual basketball tournament named in memory of the late FIBA founder R. William Jones.
“They were missing their big man Al-Dwairi and their naturalized player Jalen Harris. Plus they played their young players through the fourth quarter,” Cone said.
The 33-year-old Al-Dwairi averaged over 12 points and seven rebounds for Jordan in the first round of the Asian Qualifiers, where the Jordanians finished tied at joint first place with Iran at Group C with similar 5-1 records.
On the other hand, the 28-year-old Harris is fresh off a stint with the New Taipei Kinshin Taiwan’s professional basketball league, where he averaged over 24 points on 39 percent shooting from three-point zone.
Gilas will be playing on a two-game home stand next week, with Iran, a many-time Asian basketball champion also clashing with the Philippines on Aug. 30.
The Philippines is out to arrest its four-game losing skid and will try to sweep its two home games to bolster its FIBA World Cup bid.
