AHMEDABAD (India) - Eight teams will look to complete the other half of the Quarter-Finals picture as the FIBA U18 Asia Cup 2026 Final Phase gets rolling this Thursday, August 20, at the Veer Savarkar Indoor Stadium.
Four squads have already booked their tickets to the 'Magic Eight' namely defending champions Australia, New Zealand, 11-time titlists China, and Korea, by virtue of finishing on top of their respective groups.
Now, four more will try to make it through the Qualification to Quarter-Finals, which kick-starts as well the knockout stages as the race toward supremacy in the biennial youth competition gets more intense.
Action starts at 10:30 local time, with the Philippines taking on Syria. Gilas Youth advanced after finishing at second in Group A with a 2-1 record, securing their ticket by beating Chinese Taipei and Thailand.
The SEABA champions will be facing the team that finished third in Group B with a 1-2 card, with their lone victory a 72-64 stunner of Lebanon which also marked their first win in the U18 Asia Cup in 14 long years.
History is on the side of the Philippines, having won in their previous encounter, 112-48, during the 2022 competitions' Group Phase. And they're surely looking to repeat to arrange a showdown with the 3-0 China.
Taking the floor at 13:30 local time would be Bahrain and Chinese Taipei in a meeting between the second and third-placed teams of Groups B and A, respectively, with the winner facing Korea in the next stage.
Bahrain won twice in the three games they played during the preliminaries, capped by a 92-68 conquest of Syria to clinch the second spot and head into the Qualification to Quarter-Finals with enough momentum.
And it's what they're planning to ride on in trying to beat their East Asian counterparts, whom they've actually beaten, 76-65, in the exact same stage during the 2018 games to reach the Quarter-Finals.
Battling it out at 16:30 are contender Japan and Qatar in a meeting between familiar foes, with the winner set to face New Zealand, who emerged as the best team in Group B after winning all of their three games.
Per available records, it will be their third duel in the U18 Asia Cup, with the AKATSUKI JAPAN coming out on top in their last match - a 73-55 rout during the Group Phase of the 2024 edition where they finished seventh.
However, they're coming into the trilogy downcast after suffering a 67-64 heartbreaker to the Koreans that foiled their bid of reaching the Quarter-Finals outright, and it's an opening the Qataris hope to take advantage of.
Closing out the play-in round are hosts India and Iran at 19:30, a game which the still-unbeaten Emus will be monitoring closely as the winner of that pairing will serve as their opponents in the Quarter-Finals.
The home team was the last to reach the Final Phase by ousting Kazakhstan in the final game of the Group Phase, and they're hoping that the confidence garnered from it would be enough to take down Team Melli.
The Iranians are coming off a blowout loss to China that crushed their hopes of finishing atop Group C, but are nonetheless confident entering the match versus India due to their 3-0 advantage in the head-to-head.
FIBA