Jamaica’s chances of qualifying for the FIBA World Championships are on thin ice after they went down to The Bahamas 74-123 at a packed Sir Kendal Isaacs Gymnasium in Nassau on Friday.

It was the third-straight defeat for the Jamaicans who slipped to third in Group B of the Americas region.

Canada, who they play on Monday, stayed perfect after defeating Puerto Rico 110-84 on Friday to lead ahead of The Bahamas.

Five Bahamians — led by Valdez Edgecombe with a game-high 26 points — scored in double digits.

Dominic Bridgewater, coming off the bench, scored 23 points for The Bahamas while Franco Miller (18), Buddy Hield (15) and Kai Jones (12) gave support.

Andrew Thelwell led Jamaica with 24 points and Chase Audige added 18.

Rick Turner, Jamaica’s head coach, did not mince words after the game.

“We just got punched in the mouth by a really, really good basketball team,” he said. “We allowed them to kind of start ‘feeling themselves’. They’re a great team anyway, and so our lack of physicality, I think, was a factor early on by letting them get going — and then it just kind of spiralled from there and got a little bit out of control.”

Turner said he was caught off guard with the approach of his team against the hosts.

“We like to think of our team as a group that is never going to back down from a fight, and we just didn’t have the fight tonight. I’m surprised by it, really. I’m not surprised by the quality that Team Bahamas showed — and they’ve got such good players, and they’re so well coached, and they played really well together — you know, that that part of it didn’t surprise me. The part that surprised me was just a little bit of our lack of fight, I suppose,” the Jamaica coach explained.

They now have no option, he said, but to go all out against home team Canada on Monday if they are going to stay in contention for a place in the World Championships.

“There’s no choice but to rebound, right? Literally and figuratively; I mean, we go from one great team to another great team, you know? We talked about this in the first two windows. We were put in the most difficult pool in the tournament, and you know when you’re talking about Canada, Puerto Rico, and The Bahamas, you got the work cut out for you.

“We got to flush this one, we got to put it in the rear-view mirror — [we] can’t feel sorry for ourselves — and get ready for another great basketball team.”

Jamaica, who were beaten by three points when they hosted The Bahamas in February, were always behind the eight ball and trailed 18-28 after the first quarter. They were down 32-61 at half-time and 48-90 at the end of the third quarter.