PASAY CITY (Philippines) - Australia remained unbeaten in the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2027 Asian Qualifiers following a 93-66 victory over the Philippines at the Mall of Asia Arena on Sunday night.
The Boomers struggled to take control in the first 20 minutes but found their touch after the break, pulling away wide in the third never to look back on the way to nailing their fourth win in as many outings.
The reigning three-time Asia Cup champions thus solidified their hold of the Group A lead after dealing Gilas their second loss in a row to drop to 2-2, although both teams are now qualified for the Second Round.
After the Boomers, the Filipino dribblers followed suit, big thanks to New Zealand, who earlier beat Guam at the University of Guam Field House by way of a 99-67 conquest for their second win in a row.
Key players
Elijah Pepper shined in the victory with 28 points, spiked by a quintet of triples, alongside 6 rebounds as he was crucial in their charge most especially in the middle quarters, in which he scored 19 of his output.
Tanner Krebs continued his fine play in his debut window and finished with 18 points, 5 rebounds, and 3 assists. Mitch Creek supplied 13 points, 6 rebounds, and 4 assists in his return to national team play.
Another debutant in Tom Wilson chipped in 12 points on 5-of-10 shooting from the field alongside 7 rebounds and 4 assists plus 1 steal, as a total of eight players contributed at least 3 points in the triumph.
Turning point
Creek and Wilson were responsible in setting up the rout, conniving for a quick 7-2 run to turn a five-point halftime lead to a 45-35 advantage barely two minutes into the third canto as momentum slowly shifted their way.
Krebs and Pepper then came in to help not long after, knocking down a trey each in another spree to push their lead to 61-44 with about three minutes remaining in the same period as Gilas could no longer keep up.
Stats don't lie
Australia knocked down a total of 15 treys in the win as they weaponized the outside shot, much to the frustration of the home team. They dished out 21 assists and also won the rebounding battle mightily, 50-39.
They said
"We knew the Philippines would come out really hard at the start of the game due to their game against New Zealand, so we needed to weather that storm. I felt our intent offensively for 40 minutes was pretty good, and we just warmed down over the course of the 40 minutes. Offensively, we looked after the ball, we really shared the ball; Elijah was one of the beneficiaries. And it was really good to have Mitch Creek for this game because we knew it's gonna be a fantastic atmosphere to play in, and he's a seasoned pro. So you saw the combination of him and Nick Kay together. Very excited for the win." - John Rillie, Head Coach, Australia
"It was great. It was a great atmosphere and I think all the guys enjoyed it, it was really fun to play in. I thought we played well. The Philippines came out with a little bit of a hard start, they played well in that first half. We just had to weather the storm, stick together. And then in that second half, we shared the ball really well, guys were getting open looks - there's a couple of them where you see the ball swinging from one corner to the opposite corner with four, five passes. I think that's Aussie basketball. We played really well together." - Elijah Pepper, Australia
"It was a very painful one. It was a very painful second half. Painful to be a part of, painful to watch. Especially being in front of our home crowd. We wanted to be better than that. I thought we did everything we wanted defensively, we held guys down. But when they started to stretch the lead a little bit, got some open threes, and a couple of turnovers on our part, I think we just got deflated and lost our energy. And it was hard to chase those guys ... Very, very painful here at home, just doing that in front of the home crowd was tough." - Tim Cone, Head Coach, Philippines
"The first half we played good defense, the game was close. And then going into the second half, we just had to step it up a little bit, and I guess they just came out with more energy; a couple of our mistakes led to their threes, and then they were just on a roll from there. It got away from us." - Dwight Ramos, Philippines.
FIBA