{"id":55768,"date":"2025-08-09T16:34:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T16:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/55768\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T16:34:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T16:34:08","slug":"jericho-cruz-leads-guam-to-historic-fiba-asia-cup-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/55768\/","title":{"rendered":"Jericho Cruz leads Guam to historic Fiba Asia Cup win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-634972\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/jericho-cruz-guam-syria-fiba-asia-cup.jpeg\" alt=\"Jericho Cruz Guam Fiba Asia Cup 2025\" width=\"2400\" height=\"1601\"  \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-634972\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Guam\u2019s Jericho Cruz goes for a layup against Syria in the 2025 Fiba Asia Cup.\u2013FIBA PHOTO<\/p>\n<p>MANILA, Philippines\u2013Jericho Cruz came up with 21 points to help Guam produce a historic first win in the Fiba Asia Cup by defeating Syria, 82-73, on Friday (early Saturday Philippine time) at King Abdullah Sports City in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n<p>The San Miguel Beer mainstay highlighted his scoring surge by knocking down five triples, including three in the last five minutes that sealed the deal for the tiny island\u2019s breakthrough feat in the continental tournament.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tArticle continues after this advertisement<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sports.inquirer.net\/634697\/jericho-cruz-guam-routed-by-iran-in-fiba-asia-cup-debut\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">READ: Jericho Cruz, Guam routed by Iran in Fiba Asia Cup debut<\/a><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Syria vs Guam 1XBET Game Highlights \ud83c\udfa5<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/AsiaCup?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#AsiaCup<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/yZC7dTroVQ\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/yZC7dTroVQ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 FIBA Asia Cup (@FIBAAsiaCup) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FIBAAsiaCup\/status\/1953934160319365211?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">August 8, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a hard-fought game for us,\u201d Cruz said. \u201cI\u2019m grateful and blessed, at the same time that we\u2019re here and we got the win.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His back-to-back triples enabled Guam to extend its lead to 82-69 with 2:36 left after Syria pulled within seven.<\/p>\n<p>Guam improved to 1-1 in Group B after bouncing back from a 77-52 loss two days earlier to Iran. Tai Wesley also scored 21 points with eight rebounds and nine assists while Earnest Ross Jr. and Takumi Simon added 17 and 15, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Article continues after this advertisement\t\t  <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sports.inquirer.net\/634231\/jericho-cruz-hopes-to-sustain-fine-form-in-fiba-asia-cup-for-guam\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">READ: Jericho Cruz hopes to sustain fine form in Fiba Asia Cup for Guam<\/a><\/p>\n<p>More importantly for Guam, it has a strong chance of advancing to the qualification game for a quarterfinals berth as it is currently tied for second with Japan, its final opponent in the group phase.<\/p>\n<p>Guam and Japan, which was handed a 78-70 loss by undefeated Iran, square off on Sunday night.<\/p>\n<p>Syria dropped to 0-2 and is scheduled to take on Iran, also on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>        &#13;<br \/>\n          &#13;<\/p>\n<p>        &#13;<br \/>\n                          Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.&#13;<\/p>\n<p>        &#13;<br \/>\n          &#13;<\/p>\n<p>        &#13;<br \/>\n                          Your subscription has been successful.&#13;<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t     <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Guam\u2019s Jericho Cruz goes for a layup against Syria in the 2025 Fiba Asia Cup.\u2013FIBA PHOTO MANILA, Philippines\u2013Jericho&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-55768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}