Dubai: Height, or the lack of it, is a serious issue when it comes to basketball in Asia.

Winless after the first two days of competition at the 2014 Fiba Under-17 World Championship in Dubai, Japan coach Takashi Ideguchi has called on his players to think beyond competing only with their neighbours if they are to make an impact on the international stage.

The Asian champions started off with a 97-84 loss to 2012 runners-up Australia on Friday and on Saturday they went down meekly 96-52 against a fast-moving Canada, who bounced back from their opening loss to France.

Japan qualified for the world championships for the first time following their bronze medal at the Asian qualifiers in Iran last year. However, those successive losses have left them out of the running for a place in the play-offs for the knockout stages.

And coach Ideguchi sees this baptism by fire as a platform to build on. “Every time, we are only thinking of China and South Korea. China is tall, but not fast. Japan can play against China, but not beyond. We need to look beyond and start finding ways to compete against the best European teams first and then teams like Canada and the USA,” Ideguchi told Gulf News.

“As Asians we will always have to contend with the height issue or with speed and power. But that does not mean that we do not compete. We cannot have excuses all the time. We have to find a way out.”

But the Japanese coach is not too worried about his side’s current travails as long as the players learn with an eye on the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.

“Our first goal was to reach the world championship and, now that we have achieved this, we ought to set our sights on the next goal and that is to see what we can learn from being here,” he said.

“All the results and statistics from here will go back with us to Japan, where we will analyse and see what we can do to get better as a team that can compete at the highest level.

“Win or lose, this tournament has been a growing experience for all of us. This is the team for the future. We have a long-term plan in place and I am confident we will get better in time for Tokyo 2020. We will be there among the best teams.”