DUBAI (United Arab Emirates) - Tabiat Basketball secured a spot in the Basketball Champions League Asia (BCL Asia) 2025 Quarter-Finals right in their very first game of the tournament on Sunday.
The recent FIBA WASL runners-up were able to tick off a box in their checklist by keeping Zhejiang Guangsha in search of a win following a 99-85 victory at the Sheikh Saeed Bin Maktoum Sport Hall.
Coach Mehran Shahintab & Co. have also helped Ulaanbaatar Xac a great deal as the Broncos are advancing to the next round, too, after the Lions fell to their second defeat in as many games in Group A.
Interestingly, the reigning BCL Asia-East champions (1-0) are set to be Tabiat's next assignment on Monday, June 9, in a battle for the pool's no. 1 seed. Game time is scheduled at 15:00 local time.
"The margin is very important," said Shahintab. "Tomorrow we have a game against a strong team from Mongolia. I hope to have good games at this stage. We have to beat the other teams with a good margin."
"I hope in the next round we face the teams that we can [be able to] advance to the Semi-Finals," he added.
Stedmon Lemon finished with 29 points, while Ivan Buva made 27 alongside 7 rebounds and 6 assists for an efficiency of 36 as the two took turns in leading the Iran Basketball League outfit's second-half surge.
Tabiat actually stared at a 56-55 deficit during the third but Buva quickly erased it with a hook shot, and that triggered a 12-2 scoring spree - which he also capped off with a trey - for a 67-58 lead with 5:07 left.
The assault would continue in the fourth quarter with Lemon leading the way, with Buva and lead playmaker Sina Vahedi helping him to stretch their lead to 89-73 with less than five minutes left in the match.
Zhejiang Guangsha, though, showed some fight behind the hot shooting from deep of Barry Brown late in the game, but Lemon closed it out - including a long trey with 2.5 seconds to spare for the final count.
Vahedi finished with 13 points, 3 rebounds, and 5 assists while new guy Dee Bost tallied 10 points, 7 rebounds, and 10 assists - this, even though he is still adjusting to Tabiat's scheme of things after joining them recently.
Brown, on the other hand, powered the Lions with 28 points and 5 rebounds in the loss that dropped their card to 0-2 although that doesn't mean they are already out, as they still have a chance to qualify - albeit small.
That would depend on the points of the other teams as the Quarter-Final cast will be based on cumulative rankings, with the pairings for the June 11 games to be determined through a draw.
Nathan Knight and Lai Ke came through with 13 points apiece. Big man Xu Zhonghao supplied 11 points and 6 assists, while Xu Junwei and James Nunally added 10 points each for the 2024-25 CBA champions.
FIBA