The Dominican basketball team is on its way to scoring an easy layup tonight against Panama, which would translate into one more victory in order to qualify for its third consecutive World Cup and the fourth in its history.
The game will take place at the Roberto Durán Arena in Panama City at 8:10 p.m. Dominican time. The game will be televised by CDN Deportes.
To ensure classification directly, they would have to win today’s match against Panama and next Sunday’s against Argentina.
The Dominican Republic has a record of 7 wins and 3 losses, the same as Venezuela and Argentina in group E. Canada is in the World Cup with 10 wins without losses.
In Pool F, the United States is 8-2, Brazil 7-3, while Mexico and Puerto Rico have 6-4 records.
The team
The 12 players who will face Panama are captain Víctor Liz, Ángel Luis Delgado, Eloy Vargas, Rigoberto Mendoza, Andrés Feliz, Gelvis Solano, Antonio Peña, Juan Guerrero, Jean Montero, Gerardo Suero, Juan Miguel Suero and Jonathan Araujo.
Panama will have Iverson Molinar, Trevor Gaskins, Jhivvan Jackson, Isaac Machore, Carlos Javier Rodríguez, Josimar Ayarzay Ricardo Lindo as its main pieces for this Thursday.
Man to man, the Dominican Republic has to fight. The current qualifying scenario, where nothing is guaranteed yet, means that those led by Néstor Che García will win convincingly.
In the last match between the two teams, the Dominican Republic beat Panama in the city of Santo Domingo, 70-61.
For Sunday’s match against Argentina, Luis David Montero could occupy a space. He is currently working to obtain the Argentine visa.
In the last window held in November in the country, the national team beat the Argentines 80-69, with an offensive explosion from Gerardo Suero, who led the tricolor offensive with 20 points.
While Jean Montero, another representative of Villa Juana, donned the superhero cape to guide the Dominican team to a 72-68 victory over Venezuela, scoring 22 points.
The seven best teams on the continent (first 3 groups E and F and the best fourth place) advance to the World Cup that will take place in the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia between August 25 and September 10 of this year.