MANILA (Enzo Flojo's Asia on my Mind) - Two qualifying competitions to the 2015 FIBA Asia Championship wrapped up in the past couple of weeks, resulting in four more countries booking tickets to the continental tournament.

The first among the four to do it was Kazakhstan, which finished eighth at the 2013 FIBA Asia Championship. The Kazakhs outclassed Kyrgyzstan 84-39 to become the lone representative of the Central Asia Basketball Association (CABA) to the competition that will produce one outright Asian qualifier to the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Twenty-two-year-old wingman Pavel Ilin led Kazakhstan in this one-sided conquest, scoring 17 points on the strength of three triples, while fellow young guns Alexandr Zhigulin, Rustam Murzagaliev and Vitaliy Lapchenko also did well scoring in double-digits.

Kazakhstan, coached by former national team player Vitality Strebkov, are expected to be strong contenders in Changsha thanks to a young core of players already performing impressively at the 2014 Asian Games and key players like Anton Ponomarev, Anatoliy Kolesnikov and Jerry Johnson returning to reinforce the squad.

One of the team's main weaknesses two years ago in Manila was its inconsistent three-point shooting. The team made just 26.9 percent of its attempts from the great beyond, and that's certainly something they are working to improve in preparation for the FIBA Asia Championship. Neither Ilin nor Kolesnikov were part of that 2013 team that won just three of nine games in Manila, but both are expected to be vital cogs for the Kazakhs in China. The team's best performance ever at this tournament was a fourth-place finish back in 2009 in Tianjiin, but they will surely need to set their sights higher if they want to be considered a legitimate dark horse for the Olympic berth.

Set to make things complicated for the Kazakhs and the rest of the field are the three qualified teams from the Southeast Asian Basketball Association (SEABA): the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Just last week, the Philippine national men's "cadets" team ran roughshod over the competition in the 2015 SEABA Championship in Singapore, beating the opposition by an average of 72.4 points. Leading the charge for the Filipinos were Ray Parks, Jr, Jio Jalalon, Kiefer Ravena and Russel Escoto. Nearly all of the players on this roster are either still in school or fresh out of university, hence the "cadets" tag. The team was reinforced by naturalized center Marcus Douthit, who was hardly needed anyway. Douthit played in only three games and averaged a pedestrian 6.0 points and 6.7 rebounds per game in limited minutes.

This is practically the same team that will carry the Philippine colors in the upcoming 2015 Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games), which will also be held in Singapore, and, not surprisingly, they are expected to be a dominant force again.

For the actual 2015 FIBA Asia Championship, however, national team coach Tab Baldwin is expected to select a more experienced crew, taking his pick from the talent-rich Philippine Basketball Association (PBA). It shouldn't come as a surprise if the former New Zealand national coach chooses guys like Jayson William (a.k.a. Jayson Castro), who was named Asia's Best Point Guard in 2013, reigning PBA Most Valuable Player June Mar Fajardo and the streaky Paul Dalistan (a.k.a. Paul Lee). Of course, it goes without saying that high on coach Tab's wishlist is reacquiring the services of naturalized player Andray Blatche, whose size and versatility should automatically make the Philippines a title favorite.

Apart from the Filipinos, SEABA's other representatives - Malaysia and Singapore - will encounter rough sailing in the FIBA Asia Championship. The Malaysians finished dead last in the 2013 edition of the competition, while this is the first time Singapore have qualified in 14 years. Neither team has the size and depth to be considered a threat to any of the established powerhouses like Iran, Lebanon, China or Korea. Both squads will certainly look to learn rather than win in the continental joust. That's not to say that both countries are devoid of basketball talent. On the contrary, there are a few young players who have the potential to be solid players at the Asian level in the future.

Malaysia has aggressive forward Ivan Yeo, who looks to be a pillar of strength for future iterations of the national team, while Singapore can expect good things from the likes of Wong Wei Long, Wu Qingde, and Hanbin Ng, all of whom play for Singapore's only professional basketball club, the Singapore Slingers.

It will certainly be an exciting prospect to see how these four teams do in the 2015 FIBA Asia Championship. Both Kazakhstan and the Philippines are expected to be among the top teams, while Malaysia and Singapore are poised to counter the notion that they are also-rans.

With the entry of these four countries, half of the cast for the 2015 FIBA Asia Championship has been set. Four more slots for East Asia, one for South Asia, and three for West Asia are still up for grabs in the next couple of months.

Enzo Flojo

FIBA

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