Gilas winning against Kazakhstan is not enough to enter the 2019 FIBA World Cup

(c) PBA Media Bureau

If you entered Sunday believing that a win by our national basketball team against Kazakhstan will automatically push them to the 2019 FIBA World Cup, you are mistaken.

Here are the current standings on the two groups before the final day of qualification:

Group E
New Zealand 10-1
Korea 9-2
Jordan 6-5
China 6-5
Lebanon 6-5
Syria 2-9

Group F
Australia 10-1
Japan 7-4
Iran 7-4
Philippines 6-5
Kazakhstan 4-7
Qatar 2-9

For the last day of competition, only three other games will have an impact on the chances of our national team. There are:
Australia VS Iran
Jordan VS New Zealand
Korea VS Lebanon

Those 12 teams are fighting for seven tickets to the World Cup. The top 3 of each group are bound to China and China also has an automatic seat because they will be the host of the event. Thus, they will not be considered in the ranking. The best fourth placer will get the last ticket.

Now, in case of ties within the same group, the point differential of the tied teams will break it. While a tie of the 4th place will be broken through the point differential in all their games. Point differential is simply points scored minus points given up.

Here is the key, Lebanon's point differential for all games is way higher than the point differential of our national team and Jordan has a higher point differential than Lebanon if they end-up being tied.

Thus, if Jordan and Lebanon win their games, we are down to one last path to the World Cup.

And that is to end-up in the third place.

The key is the fact that we swept Japan. Thus, a tie with them for the third spot will be broken in our favors.

All of those scenarios though will only work out if we win against Kazakhstan.