BARRING any huge upset from the winless India against home team Saudi Arabia in the nightcap of Saturday's edition of the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup, Gilas Pilipinas will be battling the hosts for a spot in the tournament quarterfinals.
This comes after China's 90-68 beatdown of Jordan on Saturday at the King Abdullah Sports Center in Jeddah. The win earned the Chinese an outright quarterfinals seat in the tournament by sweeping Group C of the tournament.
READ: Cone, Gilas embrace challenge in traversing tough Asia Cup path
Team Dragon opened with a 17-0 run and never looked back as Mingxuan Hu and Junjie Wang conspired in that early first quarter breakaway.
The Jordanians never recovered from that point on, even trailing by as many as 26 points as they ended the group stage with 1-2 record after that shock loss to Saudi on Friday.
Shuaipeng Cheng led China with 20 points, Rui Zhao added 15 while Hu chipped in 14 in the victory.
Dar Tucker led Jordan with 27 points but found little help in the blowout loss.
How it's looking at Group C
The only way that Saudi gets dislodged from the second seed and scratched from a potential showdown with Gilas is if it loses to India by two points in their final game of the group stages - pushing Jordan to take number two in Group C, thus positioning it for a showdown with Gilas.
In that scenario, Saudi will take on the loser of the Chinese Taipei - New Zealand clash which is slated on Sunday morning (Philippine Time)
However, if Saudi loses to India by six or more, the host team will be packing their bags early, pushing India to the Group C third seed.
India lost to Jordan by seven in the opener and got blownout by 31 by China in their second game.
Get more of the latest sports news & updates on SPIN.ph
NOTICE ON UNAUTHORIZED AND UNLAWFUL USE, PUBLICATION, AND/OR DISSEMINATION OF SPIN.PH CONTENT: Please be notified that any unauthorized and unlawful use, publication, and/or dissemination of Spin.ph’s content and/or materials is a direct violation of its legal and exclusive rights to the same, and shall be subject to appropriate legal action/s.
