Muslim Basketball

You look at this team and say eh, not really dominant, but boy do they got the job done. 15 straight wins now for this group, average margin of victory is ~8 points. When you end up with more points than the other team as consistently as Suba does, who cares how much you win by. They take on Lagos in what will be the most boring game of the week, final score 41-33. Nobody will have more than 12 points, but Suba will enter week 3 undefeated. By no means is it pretty, but if it works, don’t fix it.

Broke away in the second half to knock off what seems to be a pesky Palermo squad. Patrick will continue to be the focus of his opponents, he hasn’t been contained in most of his performances. Not the most efficient outing, but he got the job done.

Knock. Down. Shooter. Moe Masri will rip your heart out if you give him any daylight at all. If you don’t give him any space, he’ll still hit them. Besides Moe and Raza, Mombasa couldn’t get much offense going. Regardless, they played very good defense and prevented Granada from finding any continuity and rhythm. They find ways to win - they’ve been doing it season in and season out. Should be a good one against Baghdad.

I think someone hit a game winner in this one? Some kid was walking around the gym for an hour telling everyone he hit a game winner. Anas Zubi showed some flashes of his old self, dropping 17. Biggz also added 17, Jawad contributed 16, but none more important than the last 2 points that got Medina the lead with a couple seconds left.

Both Dhaka and Medina had impressively efficient games to open up their season, each shooting better than 50% from the field. I usually wouldn’t go as far as to say that a missing player would be the difference maker in a game, but considering that Medina had 15 turnovers, I can’t help but think that Farzad’s presence would’ve converted at least some of them into transition buckets. Especially with efficient performances from Ameer and Michael, it’s safe to say the game wouldn’t have ended on an opposing team’s game winner.

They didn’t go up against the BEST team in Kashgar, but nonetheless showed us a glimpse of what they’d do to any bad team- not hold a competitive game. With an insanely efficient 19 points from Kenny along with another 19 from Luke, it’s looking like Cordoba has got its offense set to break any defense that comes their way. That’ll sure be tested next week when they go up against a young-legged Lahore squad that loves to run in transition.

Regardless of their performances, there’s just too much depth in Granada to rule them out when talking opponents you don’t want to face in the playoffs. However, going into any second half down 14 is never an ideal situation, even for such a talented group. 17 points from Singer, though effective, isn’t gonna cut it when your best player in Anwar is shooting 1-7. Though he was out the second half due to injury (as we pray for his and everyone’s health), it wasn’t looking like they would’ve had a plan to get out of being torched by Mo Masri. Look

Solid win for this powerhouse against an intimidating Beirut team. I’d usually expect a larger margin of deficit, but they have yet to fully figure out how to incorporate Luke into their offense. When he, Zain, and the Abbassi bro’s are better synchronized, you’d better hope for an off game from Idriss. If thats not the case and he’s knocking down 40% from deep like he did in Week 1, it’s almost definitely an L at that point.

Like I said before, this is more than just a solid group. They proved they were top contenders in week 1 by holding down a tough Lahore squad without, not only 1, but 2 of their best players. Moe Rayyan really showed up big, hitting jumper after jumper to complement Tim’s drives to the rim. Despite a CLUTCH 3 from Jeremy with 2 seconds left to put Lahore up by 1, Tim was able to seal the deal with 2 free throws off a convenient, yet sloppy, last second foul.

Please see the Pre Season Rankings for insight regarding this team.

A couple of takeaways from their Week 1 performance. First, like I mentioned last week, this is an incredibly talented group on both ends of the floor. Second, this was not a proper display of the groups potential at all. To start off, newcomer Rocco was killing it, getting bucket after bucket. His foot was then lifted off the pedal. That being the case, along with a simple 15 from Anas and relatively quiet performances from Raied and Muntasir, it’s safe to assume that this is already a top squad

Probably the most entertaining game of the week. Back and forth with Baghdad. Moayad showed us his aggressiveness in crunch time, hitting three layups late. One-point game, 30 ticks left. Baghdad hits one of two free throws to go up two. Jeremy hits a three with two seconds left. Lahore up one, GAME! SIKE! Lahore commits the foul on Tim Brown’s drive. Hits the first free throw. Puts up the second. He called game.

Their week 1 box score is a perfect example as to how, at times, stats can speak louder than words. Other than 2 players, every player on the stat sheet ended the game with double figures in points in harmonious distributions, shooting a near 50% from the field for a whopping 77 points! A balanced offense will surely take you places, but the insanely smooth execution that Jakarta displayed on Sunday may suggest that there’s another major threat to look out for this season. Jakarta, you have put the league on notice.

Looks to me like they did add that single piece that would take them back to finals contention- and his name is Kenny Jenkins. With his complements to Mingo’s all around game and Nick’s automatic shooting, look for Beirut to make serious runs throughout this season. Despite falling short to a deep Islamabad squad late down the stretch, they were able to hold them to below 40% from the field. Work from there.

Did not expect to see this kind of production to start the season. I asked who will score for them, they answered by all scoring. They played terrific defense, holding Tehran to just 42 and Mo Amin to a very pedestrian 6 point 6 rebound performance. They will need to up the offense a bit against higher scoring teams, but they looked athletic enough on both sides of the floor to give many teams problems. They’ll face a really tough test against Suba.

The stat sheet has spoken! Kenny Tansey is no new name to this league, but sure reminded us why he was such an outrageous scoring threat in past seasons. He almost single-handedly beat a deep Sana’a squad, hitting some clutch threes down the stretch. The man went nuts going 8-10 from deep, adding some respect to the teams name. Though he put on a show, Jerusalem’s gonna have to solidify their supporting cast if they hope to be legitimate contenders moving forward.

They got a tough opener. Did not learn much from this game, but it seems like outside of Muj and Yousef, there really isn’t much. Jean physically looks like he can give some teams problems. Look for a really interesting matching against Palermo - very curious how they will look to defend Popal and Co. Would absolutely love to see some Muj on Popal back and forth. Expect a handful of points in this one.

This team will go as far as Popal does. The more efficient he is, the better their results will be. Very tough to win a game when your best scorer goes 5-25 and misses all 8 three point attempts.

They almost stole this one. 48 points won’t do it for this group, though. They’ve never really shown an ability to be an above average defensive team, they need to be top 5 in offense to have any shot. They might be able to get back on track against a Jakarta team that’s prone to give up points, but can rack them up very quickly themselves.

Despite having shot 27% from the field and 18% from deep, I’m going to have to cut this team some slack for week 1 since they have a lot to figure out, and because they had a veteran opponent that they weren’t close to being ready for. Omar Q and Omar H are two players that need the ball in their hands to be dominant, and have to consider working out a balance or else there stats will be as respectively lop-sided as this one- Omar H obviously having the good game and the other an unacceptably poor shooting performance. If they find ways to work together and facilitate to their wings and big in Muhanned, then they’ll likely make some noise

Seems as though the description of this team’s preseason ranking was a bit too lenient- and that this squad didn’t in fact take notes from last season. Usually new teams progress in their second seasons, but shoot 27% from the field and get blown out by 18 in the opener? A single win would surprise me at this point.

Tough debut for the group. Silver lining though, Josh Eng sure looked good. Big time performance, but wasn’t nearly enough to top the 38 combined from Luke and Kenny. Next week won’t be any easier when they face the high-powered Kazan attack, led by the extremely potent Patty J.