AFTER disposing of Kazakhstan in another monstrous effort, 85-53, on Wednesday, Iran national coach Mehmed Becirovic said they are now training their sight on beating Jordan, their quarterfinal opponent on Friday.
Iran, which ended the two-round preliminaries with a 5-0 record, has beaten the same rejigged Jordan quintet in last month’s William Jones Cup tourney in Taipei, 64-57.
Becirovic believes they’ve already seen what the Jordanians can do and will be ready to wage war against their chief West Asian cage rival.
“The difference will be, that my players had a bad experience with Jordan. They will be motivated and they know they will not make the same mistake,” said the Sloveninan coach, referring to Iran’s bitter
quarterfinal loss to Jordan in the 2011 edition in Wuhan, China.
Iran went on to finish fifth that year while Jordan went all the way to the Finals before losing by one point to eventual champion China.
“We’ll be ready to play against Jordan. We played them already (in the Jones Cup) so they know us, we know them,” said Becirovic.
Becirovic said he could care less whether Jordan is a veteran or young team because what’s more important for him is they get past the quarterfinals.
“Young team or old team, this is the senior championship. I don’t care. We will try to be ready for this (quarterfinal) game,” vowed the Iran national coach, who tries to reclaim the Fiba-Asia basketball
title they lost in 2011 after the Iranians reigned supreme in the 2007 and 2009 stagings.
The Jordanians knocked off the Japanese for the fourth and last quarterfinal berth in Group E following their 65-56 win earlier in the day Wednesday.
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