FIBA Asia has notified CTBA that Taiwan will replace Bahrain in the 2009 Asian Men's Championship due to Bahrain's withdraw, CTBA said Tuesday.
Sixteen teams in the Asian Championship, which will be played in Tianjin, China from August 6-16, will be: Iran, Lebanon, South Korea, Kazakhstan, Jordan, Qatar, Japan, Philippines, Indonesia, Uzbekistan, India, Kuwait, UAE, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and China.
The draw is scheduled to be held today.
According to FIBA Asia, 16 seeds in the Asian Championship will be top five teams in the previous Stankovic Cup, top two teams in five subzone championships and the host country.
However, FIBA Asia did not clarify the above seeding procedure to all member countries, which is partially why only five countries entered the 2008 Stankovic Cup in Kuwait.
If all member countries had known the Stankovic Cup would be a part of the Asian Championship qualifying process, I believe more countries would have played in the tournament.