Muslim Basketball

A close win in OT. Huge game from Pat, as always, putting up 30 points, 7 boards, and 5 steals. The impact Kazan thought they got with adding John last season finally paid off, as he was a great compliment to Pat. Week 3 they have a matchup against a team that knocked them out the playoffs last season.

Barely beating Delhi is not impressive at all, but barely beating them with arguably the best player in MB not present is. Ameed carried the load on his shoulders with 23 and 12, and was able to lead Kabul to a win.

The return! I am sure 6-17 isn’t what Farhad wanted to do, but 16 points and 14 boards is impressive nevertheless. The real story here is the Asian Assassin Leonard Lee! 27 points week 1, 29 points week 2. Two games in he is 2nd in scoring, and he is doing it on 56% shooting. Amman is a legit title contender.

Pete Brown is back, and Mombasa is back to the scary team nobody wants to play. Zach, Pete, Raza, and Sadat all had great games. Mo can still shoot lights out, although he didn’t this game. Next week they play Tripoli. Pete vs. Jean and Raza vs. Muj should be exciting to watch.

Another easy W for Dhaka, and next week will be the same thing. Book them for 3-0. Amman will be their real test.

Jean with an absolute monster game again. 16 points and 19 boards on 75% shooting. No Muj, no problem. Even without Muj they had 4 players with double digit scoring. Tripoli wants to prove that the week 1 loss was a fluke. 

Bukhara only had 5 guys again, this time replacing K Rod with Elfayoumi. They had the same outcome, but this one was a lot closer. I still believe with all the players present this team will be dominant. They’re going to need everyone next week for the GOTW. 

Playing with 5, Cairo came up short against an underrated Sana’a team. Luis filled up the box score, but was unable to get his shot down, shooting 3-17 from the floor. It looks as if he needs to stay down low as opposed to playing on the outside. Oh yeah, AMP had 35.

Surprising loss to Medina. Jon and Anas did exactly what we expected them to do together, but they got absolutely ZERO help from the supporting cast. The other 6 players shot a total of 4-21 from the field, and 1-11 from 3. When all the attention is on two guys, I can only assume they are going to receive some open looks. They gotta knock more down.

Shooting over 50% from the field, 40% from 3, and 70% from the line will usually get you the W in MB. They look to keep the winning streak going against a very tough Kabul team.

It is rare you see a team take 57 shots and only 9 3s nowadays, especially when they’re shooting it well. This team is very good, and another underrated squad. They play together like they’ve been playing together for years. Look for them to creep up the rankings as the season goes on.

In order for Jakarta to really make a move, they have to beat some of the top teams in the league. This game was their shot to jump up to top 8 in the rankings. Looking at their schedule, I see them beating the lower ranked teams, and struggling with the top tier teams. They might have another .500 season ahead of them.

Welcome home Kenny Jenkins! Kenny was the spark Beirut needed. 23 and 10 on 11-14 shooting. When their BIG3 (Kenny, Mingo, Nick) are all there, they are tough to beat. 

An all-around great team win from Umar, Saad, and the rookies. Their next game is against a team that might be right around their skill level. If they beat Jakarta, I am sold.

As expected, they absolutely demolished Riyadh, winning by almost 30 points. These aren’t the type of games that move you up too much in the rankings, but a W is a W in the standings.

Great win for Timbuktu. BAKH and Chris holding it down for the team with 20 points and 16 points, respectively. Even matchup next week against the lanky giant, Omar.

Is it bad if I say Zain STILL needs to take more shots? The obvious bright spot in an otherwise poor performance. Islamabad is underachieving tremendously so far this season. It doesn’t get easier next game with a Kazan team looking for revenge.

Tough loss for Aytac and gang. I heard he had a good look on a possible game-winning 3. When was the last time Suba was 0-2? Forget about not having wins, when was the last time Suba had more than 2 losses in a regular season? Answer: Summer 2017. Can they win out?

Just when we thought Ahmed was ready to carry some of the weight on his shoulders, he drops a donut shooting 0-9 from 3 and 0-2 from the stripe. Maybe his camera was still in his hand? Omar couldn’t get to double digits in rebounding, and this team lives and dies with Omar’s performance.

Have I mentioned that they probably miss Amir yet? They went from powerhouse, to powerpuff. They have to get back on track.

They played against a top notch Bukhara team that only had 5 guys. Just came up short. I can already see the “::INSERT PLAYER NAME HERE:: wasn’t there” excuse coming.

They are never at a shortage of guys. The 9 man rotation ended up giving Josh only 5 field goal attempts. That is not going to cut it if they want to win games.

No real standout performance, and a poor shooting effort from the entire team. I only see one more winnable game this season, and that’s the last game of the season. They might be in for a tough 3 months.

Good performances from Ali Hassan and Farhad. Also, McCloud with a great performance shooting 8-9 from the floor. McCloud is back in MB after an 8 year hiatus. He is showing that he still has gas in the tank. 

Like I said last week, I knew Amir would shoot better, but unfortunately it still didn’t result in a win. Even with solid shooting from Deep and Raj, they still fell just short. I don’t see this team being this low for too long.

100% shooting from the FT line! That sounds like I am being sarcastic, but I am not. That is impressive. 10-10. Offensively they actually played well, but they just gave up way too many points.

Unable to beat a Mo-less Kabul squad. Malik swears Delhi has something cooking. We are waiting patiently to see it.

This team desperately needs a leader and a go-to player. I can’t tell you who it is.