QAT - Stiebing : Asian Games title would be huge for Qatar

DOHA (Asian Games) - Qatar held off Chinese Taipei 103-96 in double over-time to reach the semi-finals of the 15th Asian Games. The team gained invaluable experience at the 2006 FIBA World Championship in Japan, playing against powers such as Greece, Lithuania, Brazil, Australia and Turkey.

Now, Qatar are trying to use that experience to become a regular power in Asia. Reaching the semis of this tournament is just the latest step of Qatari coach Joey Stiebing's plan for success.

The American native talked to PA Sport about what he thinks the team is capable of.

Coach, your team struggled early on in the Chinese Taipei game and were 35-21 down early in the second quarter. What happened in the opening stages?
Stiebing: Give them a lot of credit. They hit some shots early and executed their offence and caught us a little light-footed. But I'm really proud of my guys. They fought, they never gave up. You have to do that to win a championship and hopefully we can carry that over for Thursday.

What were telling your guys in the over-time sessions?
Stiebing: We wanted to go inside because they had no size able to guard us. And I emphasised to get the ball inside and I thought that Yasseen played unbelievably tough in both of the over-times to get us some baskets.

Next up in the semi-finals is Iran. Are you going to change anything in your game?
Stiebing: We'll change a little because they're not nearly as good shooters as Taipei. But they're a lot more physical. They take the ball to the basket. They try to get the ball inside. We'll try to take away their inside game and stop their penetration.

You met Iran in the first round and beat them. Are you expecting to see anything different from them?
Stiebing: I expect a totally different game. Any time you play a team a second time they're able to know you a little bit better and take away what you did the first time. They play hard. That's what I like about Iran. They play hard and never quit. If we don't come ready to play, it will be a game like tonight.

How does all the experience at the 2006 FIBA World Championship in Japan help the team in a game like this?
Stiebing: I want to say it helps a lot. Our guys really stuck together. They never quit. We were down eight, nine in the fourth quarter and we kept battling and it's a credit to those guys in that locker-room what they were able to accomplish. If we would have lost it would have been devasting. But they never quit. So I'm very proud of them.

What does the team need to do to win this tournament?
Stiebing: We turned the ball over early and we didn't execute. My thing with this basketball team is that we're not going to get much better physically but we can get better mentally. And that's what we're striving to do every game, get better mentally and improve on our mistake.

What's the biggest area you have to improve upon?
Stiebing: We have to take care of the basketball. We gave up some offensive rebounds early in the game that hurt us and that's been hurting us a lot in this tournament. We have to do a better job with that.

Make a comment about Yasseen, who took over and scored eight points second over-time.
Stiebing: He's the captain of the team, the veteran player of this team. And I just said to myself, I'm going with him. No matter if we win or lose. I'm going to put it in his hands. And he delivered. He deserves a lot credit for this victory tonight. As does everybody else, but especially him.

What makes Qatar so tough to beat?
Stiebing: We play hard and we defend. You look at the score tonight and I don't think we defended well. We gave up over 90 points and we won. Normally if we give up 80 points, we don't win. We were able to get some easy baskets in the second half. And offensively we executed a lot better.

Where do you want to go from here?
Stiebing: Well, we have Iran. We just want to take it one game at a day. We made the semis which was one of our goals. One of our main goals was to make it to the final and then whoever we play we go from there.

What would a championship at this tournament mean for Qatari basketball?
Stiebing: It would be huge to this country. We I arrived here four years ago everybody said Qatar cannot beat China. It would take us 20, 25 years. Well if we could win one more game, maybe we'll be on the cusp of doing that. And this is not something that has happened over night. It took us four years to build this program where it is. I think we still have a ways to go and I think we can get better. For the time we've been together it's been a great ride.

One criticism you've faced is that the team is not a Qatari team, being made up of players originally from outside the country. What's your response to that talk?

Stiebing: I'm not commenting on that anymore. I get 12 guys to coach and I coach them. To me, it's a non-issue. For the first three days that's all I've answered and I'm not going to answer those questions any more.

By David Hein
PA Sport, exclusively for FIBA.com