The Korean men’s basketball team won a close match against Indonesia in the 2025 International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Asia Cup qualifiers.
The national basketball team led by coach Ahn Jun-ho defeated Indonesia 86-78 in the third game of Group A of the Asia Cup preliminaries held at Sono Arena in Goyang, Gyeonggi-do on the 21st. Korea is 53rd in the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) rankings, and Indonesia is 77th. Yoo Yu-sang was in full swing with 13 points and 5 rebounds, including 3 3-pointers. Lee Hyun-joong (12 points, 11 rebounds), who returned to the national team after three years, was disappointed by making only 1 of 11 3-pointers.
Korea, which belongs to Group A along with Indonesia, Australia, and Thailand, has been on a winning streak since winning against Thailand in February. Ahn Jun-ho (2 wins, 1 loss) ranked second in the group, following Asia’s strongest team, Australia (3 wins). Thailand ranked 3rd (1 win, 2 losses), and Indonesia ranked 4th with 3 losses. In this preliminary round, which will determine the team that will advance to the Asia Cup finals to be held in Saudi Arabia in August 2025, 24 countries will be divided into 6 groups and will be played in a home-and-away format until February next year. The top two countries in each group will advance directly to the finals, and four of the six countries ranked third in each group will also advance to the finals.
Although the opponent was Indonesia, whose power was one level below, Ahn Jun-ho’s victory was valuable. This is because most of the key members were excluded from this convocation. Coach Ahn Jun-ho initially called Lee Jeong-hyeon (Sono), Ha Yoon-ki, Moon Jeong-hyeon (KT), and Kim Jong-gyu (DB) to the national team, but they were all missed due to injuries. It was a situation in which we could not be reassured that we were ahead of Indonesia in objective power. As expected, Korea broke the expectation of an easy victory and engaged in a fierce battle with Indonesia. They showed concentration in the final 4th quarter and defeated Indonesia’s last-minute chase. Coach Ahn Jun-ho reflected at the press conference after the game, saying, “The play should be ahead, but it seems like all 12 players were ahead of the game. That’s why they were dragged along the entire time.” Coach Ahn said, “It is very difficult to play a game like this because the atmosphere is taken over by the opponent from the beginning, but fortunately, the team came together in the end and turned it around, which is very meaningful.”
Regarding the 3-point shooting success rate of only 24.3% on this day, he said, “It is probably the lowest figure among the national team games. It means that we did not make good choices in good opportunities.” He added, “In the game against Australia, we supplied the ball smoothly to create better chances and increase the 3-point shooting success rate. “I will,” he pledged. Ahn Jun-ho will play the 4th game against Australia on the 24th. Coach Ahn said, “We will organize ourselves well and show a better performance against Australia. We plan to do a lot of zone defense against Australia.”
Joongang Pi ([email protected])
