SAN SALVADOR (El Salvador) - The FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 Americas Pre-Qualifiers for Group A wrapped up on Sunday with fireworks as one club advanced to the regular qualifiers despite struggles from their best player and another club completed their three games with an unbeaten record.

Here are the results and analysis for day three:

Cuba 79, Costa Rica 60

With the second berth in the qualifiers on the line, Cuba (2-1) throttled Costa Rica (1-2) behind a stellar performance from Karel Guzman (25 points on 8-of-13 shooting) to end the pre-qualifiers in impressive fashion.

Cuba actually won this game rather convincingly despite an off evening from Jasiel Rivero, who has been the team’s best player – and arguably the group’s best player – through the first two outings. While Rivero grabbed six rebounds and was a factor on the interior, he only scored nine points and shot 4-of-14 from the field.

This is positive news for Cuba. Not only did they lock up a spot to advance, but they did so with confidence and momentum moving forward. It was thought to be essential for Rivero to play well in order for Cuba to win and instead, they were able to ride Guzman, Yoel Cubilla (13 points) and their depth to victory. Most importantly, other than one poor quarter vs. the Bahamas, Cuba played like a club that is right there with the Bahamas as the class of Group A.

Meanwhile, Costa Rica just narrowly missed a spot in the qualifiers even though Manrique Alvarado and Isaac Conejo had bounce back performances after struggling vs. the Bahamas on Saturday.

Bahamas 87, El Salvador 79

The Bahamas (3-0) already clinched a berth following their win on Saturday vs. Costa Rica, so finding motivation beyond topping the group was a question mark.
It showed in the second half as the Bahamas let El Salvador (0-3) cut their lead down to single digits and only went on to win by eight. Overall, though, the country got the result they needed and will move on without a blemish on their record despite a near disaster vs. Cuba in their opener.

Kentwan Smith (20 points), Garvin Clark (18 points) and Travis Munnings (18 points) played the part of “Big Three” on Saturday, while the Bahamas forced 14 turnovers and limited El Salvador to just five 3-pointers.

The Bahamas were the best team in the group over the course of these past three days, but there were some cracks on both ends of the floor that will have to be fixed before November.

FIBA