Muslim Basketball

ehhhhhhhhh. alright. 2 very impressive wins entering a big time matchup with Islamabad. Showed up sans Raza - did not matter... Man is Daniel Goldberg scary. 14 and 17 against the incumbent MVP Omar Abbassi. Impressive, impressive game all around from Mombasa. First time in a while that Islamabad looked “meh” for an entire game. Only hit on them would be that they need to knock down some perimeter shots before teams load up and do everything to stop Daniel.

First time they’ve looked flat in a while - gotta cut them a little bit of slack. Sometimes they are dominant, sometimes they eek out the close wins, but bottom line is they find ways to win. They have a dog fight with a Beirut team that got its rear end handed to them on a silver platter last week.

They are who we thought they were: Loaded. Muj and Mo have been doing there thing for years, but man oh man this Yousef sure is nice. Add Shareef’s defensive presence, neutralizing Jon Mingo, Omar Khalaf’s rebounding, and man you have a team that is more solid than NYC traffic. The consistency is the question, but when they work, they work.

No John and no Herb, but they brought Muhannad. Baghdad didn’t bring someone that could box him out or keep him from scoring. 16 and 12 for the big fella, a couple 3s from Tarik Salem, and some terrific team defense kept themselves from losing a game they should’ve lost. This kind of cast with John and Herb as the engine is a dangerous team.

Struggled all game against Jakarta, found some life midway through the second half to cut it to 7, but a 10-0 Jakarta run ended all hopes of a comeback. Not Mingo’s best game and the guys around him didn’t pick up enough slack. I don’t expect them to struggle like this too often, but they’ll need to get over this loss quickly as they play a hungry Islamabad team.

I think this proved last week’s collapse as a fluke. They didn’t play the toughest opponent, but oh man they put up points with swiftness. 41 in back to back halves is no easy feat. They didn’t let up and got a much needed bounce back win. Patrick was able to find the bottom of the net again, Mark continues to do what he does, Frank and Frank find ways to contribute, and that full court press is not easy to break. They aren’t a big team, but their length and athleticism makes it difficult to get into your offense. They play Amman next week, a team that features much better ball handling than they’ve seen thus far. We’ll see how successful the press is if they even decide to dispatch it.

I think it’s fair to star creeping Dhaka up to where they are used to being. If the playoffs started tomorrow, I still have to go with them - they’ve proven that slow starts don’t phase them and they flat out find ways to win. 

We’re so used to seeing video game numbers from Abdul that we often forget 23 in a game isn’t too shabby. Think is though, he takes half of his team’s shots, so they better be going in - they did and didn’t in this matchup against a win-deprived Dhaka team that wasn’t going to go 0-3. I like this team and I think they, just like Lahore, have a terrific engine and a solid supporting parts, but when that engine doesn’t operate at peak performance, the supporting parts often become irrelevant. Pressure and attention will be on Abdul all season long, it’s up to him to beat it or put guys in positions to beat it. His team will keep games close all season long, but he’s got the keys.

After a decent debut with his new team, Omar Qasem doesn’t seem to be contributing the way he normally does. The ball doesn’t seem to be in his hands as much as he’d like, he doesn’t have the opportunity to work down low, and he finds himself caught up between a crowded backcourt and a solid front court. He’s a better player with the ball in his hands, but so is Moayad. He needs to be the guy that gets Amman going or else it’s just too much one on one from Moayad and forced shots from Mana.

This is what we expected now. Mo Amin back to his normal double double, efficient self. There’s still some growing pains with this group, but they have the whole package to challenge everyone in this league.

Never in my life did I believe a Edriss Froogh team could score 39 and win, but Timbuktu’s offense was so bad, they proved me wrong. According to Jaber, he is the best player in the league, so someone please give them the trophy like, right now.

Gave Granada a good ol’ fashion smackdown, and did so for 40 minutes. This one was never close because Ted, Yaqob, and Zain never let up. We know Ted is a terrific player, but Yaqob and Zain are no slouches. I want to see a couple more games before I make a judgement, but they seem to have an above average team. 

Took them a while to wake during each of their 8AM games to start the season, but they never woke up in this 9AM matchup with Lagos. Nothing went right for them, everything went right for Lagos. Sometimes you have these games. What is a concern though, they have not been able to start a game off well. When you play good opponents, if you don’t start well, you have no chance.

Got a good win against a solid team. Big time performance from Ken, who is definitely in the running for POW. Need to see a bit more from the rest of the team because as good as Kenneth is, he isn’t 25 and 17 week in week out good. (Had a typo last week, Cordoba was supposed to be 19, not 10. Sorry for that)

Always nice to see Suba win. They have some good players, but their inefficiency will catch up to them.

Really, you only scored 29 against Ed? How you score 29 playing 5 vs 4?

Had the best loss of the remaining teams. They played a solid opponent, played a good game, but the better team won - nothing wrong with that.

Also played a good game, but lost to the better team. Nothing more to say.

You lost to that shorthanded of a group?

Oh. My. God.