BASKETBALL – THE kingdom is set to host the second edition of the Bahrain International Basketball Tournament later this month with the participation of four senior men’s basketball national teams.
The competition is scheduled to take place from November 19 to 21 at the Bahrain Basketball Association (BBA) Arena in Um Al Hassam Sports Complex, with games featuring Syria, the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain, the BBA has announced.
The event is being held as part of the participating squads’ preparations for upcoming tournaments, most notably the second round of the pre-qualifying for the Fiba Asia Cup 2029, also to be held later this month.
In the Bahrain International Basketball Tournament, two games will be played on November 19. The first will see Syria take on the UAE at 6pm, to be followed by Kuwait going up against hosts Bahrain at 8pm.
The winners will then face off in the final at 8pm on November 21, while the losers will lock horns for third place earlier the same evening at 6pm.
Bahrain’s games in the second round of pre-qualification for the Fiba Asia Cup 2029 are set to be held in Zouk Mikael, Lebanon from November 27 to 30.
The Bahrainis are part of a 12-nation field in this phase from four different groups in the opening round. The nationals are in Group E along with Palestine, Kazakhstan, the UAE, Kuwait, and Sri Lanka.
The Bahrainis, coached by Slobodan Subotic from Slovenia, made it through to this stage after winning all four of their Group A fixtures in the first round held in Dubai, the UAE, in August and September.
Group F is composed of Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, Fiji, and hosts Mongolia, with their fixtures set to be played in Ulaanbaatar.
All teams carry forward their results from the pre-qualifiers’ first phase. The Bahrainis will therefore play just three fixtures – first against Sri Lanka on November 27, then against Kazakhstan the following evening, and concluding with a game against Palestine on November 30.
The top four teams from each group at the end of the second round will then make it to the Fiba Asia Cup 2029 qualifiers, joining the 16 automatically qualified teams by virtue of their participation in the Fiba Asia Cup 2025 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
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