Jordan knock out Iran at Asian basketball championships

A barrage of three-pointers from floor leader Sam Daghles helped Jordan upset the odds with a 88-84 win over champions Iran in the quarter-finals of the Asian championships on Friday. Daghles scored seven of his 23 points in the last minute as the Jordanians toppled their long-time rivals and spoiled Iran's hopes of taking a third straight Asian championship. "I'm very proud of our team, it was a team effort, this was a win our country needed," an elated Daghles said. "We just gave ourselves a big shot at making the final by beating the number one seed." Iran's towering centre Hamed Haddadi had 27 points and 14 rebounds, but made a costly flagrant foul with his team behind 80-79, giving Jordan two free throws and the ball with just over a minute remaining. Daghles made both free throws and Iran's last gasp effort at overtaking Jordan fell short. "We shot well tonight, we were more focused than previous games," Jordan's coach Tab Baldwin said. "The other thing, we wanted Haddadi to score, we didn't want anyone else to score. He got his 27, but we limited what the other guys got." Jordan hit 10 out of 23 three point shots on the day, including four from centre Zaid Alkhas who scored 14 points in the closely fought game that saw 11 lead changes and five ties. "Today we played like babies, we didn't have a chance," guard Saeid Karekani said of Iran's first loss here after six early round victories. "Jordan shot very well, we played very bad and we shot bad." In another quarter-final, South Korea beat Japan 86-67 with Moon Tae-Jong scoring 17 points and giant centre Ha Seung-Jin tallying 14 points and eight rebounds for the winners. South Korea used their speed to jump out to a 25 point lead in the first half, dominating their rivals, including grabbing 20 offensive rebounds that led to 20 second half points. "This is a very disappointing moment for this team, we have worked really hard for two years to have this game to get to the final four of the Asian Championships," Japan's coach Thomas Wisman said. "We have not beat South Korea for 14 years in an Asian championship, that is something we have to look at, we played like we didn't believe, we played passively, we were comprehensively out played." In later quarter-final games, Taiwan face the Philippines and hosts China take on Lebanon.