Muslim Basketball

New team on top! No Pete Brown. No Raza. They still came out and got the W against a competitive Medina squad. I still stand by my statement. Without Pete Brown, this team is still great, but they are beatable. With Pete Brown, they are very close to being unstoppable.

Ameed and team took care of business winning by 41 points. Is Mo going to be eligible for playoffs? Half way through the season he only has 2 games played. Regardless of whether he is there or not, this team is scary.

The only undefeated team left! Number 1 in the standings doesn’t mean number 1 on the power rankings. Strength of schedule matters more than anything. The fact of the matter is in the 5 games they have played, the teams’ records are a combined 8-17, with Beirut being the only team with a winning record that they have faced. Granted, they don’t make the schedule. They just have to keep taking care of business week after week. Salim Laib isn’t a name we have mentioned on here before. 28 points and a perfect 10 for 10 from the charity stripe. Way to have a game, sir.

Took down the previous number 1 ranked squad with a game winner from Jordan Van Eps. Super exciting game all around. Anas, Jon, and Jordan all did what they are there to do. We finally got a sneak peek of what this team is capable of doing. I knew once they all showed up they would get it together.

The mighty have fallen! Obviously losing 1 game off of a game winner isn’t going to knock you out of the top 5. Having only 5 guys hurt them, as they had two players ending with 4 personal fouls. When you have 4 fouls and no bench players, you are forced to play soft, because you don’t want your team to be stuck playing 5 on 4.

Kazan brought the entire roster out and demolished Lagos by 43. Pat shot a super-efficient 16-25, scoring 39 points. After Pat, the scoring was kind of spread out, with Anthony being their next highest scorer with just 14.

Other than Ameer, nobody got it going. Lucky for Dhaka, they played a struggling Suba squad who also had nobody knocking their shot down. Don’t expect Dhaka to have another game like this all season. They won on their off day.

My goodness. 116-47. Islamabad moving down 1 spot is just like Kazan and Dhaka moving down. It is not a punishment, but Granada needed to move up. Bilal with the triple double dropping 30-14-10 on 15-18 shooting! I know we haven’t done player of the week this year on IG, but he is my POTW. Zain was 1 assist away from a triple-double himself, with 15-13-9. I have never seen 2 players on the same team get a triple-double in the same game, and we were very close to seeing that. This game they had SIX players in double digits. Not only is that not often, it just doesn’t happen in MB. Let’s see if next week they make it 7.

Muj lit it up like always, but Jean couldn’t get it going, so Harash stepped in as the second scoring option. If they do not have attendance issues, I can see the defending champs winning out the rest of the season.

I really want to move this team up higher, but it is hard to move anyone else above them down. They really need a statement win, and with their schedule, the only team that can move them up significantly would be a win over Dhaka. I am looking forward to that game to see how good this Timbuktu team really is. BAKH has already proven he can score, averaging 25ppg this debut season.

A win vs. Bukhara looks really good, but when you see that they barely won against only 4 players, it doesn’t look as nice. I thought this was the week they make a big jump, but due to unfortunate circumstances, they are stuck at 11.

I don’t know if Tehran likes to make games that they should win by a good margin close, but this is the second one in a row. It was basically Anas and Mo vs. Palermo. The thing about that is, Anas and Mo are good enough that they still got the W. They need the rest of the team to contribute significantly more than they currently are.

Like I said last week, without a team, it is hard to win games. Even with Matt, late addition to the roster, scoring 36 points and 12 boards, they came up short. The fact that they were so close to beating Jakarta with 4 guys is impressive. If Bukhara had 6 guys at each game this season there is a chance they could be undefeated. This is a very good team, and I refuse to drop them into the bottom quadrant of the power rankings where Big O wants them to be.

Surprisingly, Beirut was actually down at halftime by 3 points to Riyadh. Mingo had the type of game we are used to seeing from him. Mingo and Kenny carried them to victory. Nick couldn’t hit, and although I didn’t watch the game, they are probably used to him scoring more than 7. The fact of the matter is they played one of the worst teams in MB and were in danger of losing at one point. Good teams find a way to win, and they still did, but this wasn’t a good win at all.

This is a very good all-around team, but they are missing the go-to guy. Their scoring is very spread out, which is good, but when the game is on the line, who do you want shooting the ball? Who do you want with the ball in their hands? Clayton? Colin? Chris? I don’t know if they know, but they need to pick a C.

Lahore needs to stop shooting 3s. They shot 13% from behind the arc, and are currently 25th in the league in 3 point percentage. When they play down low with Omar being the focal point, they are great. Omar was 12-23 inside the arc, and had 24 points and 20 rebounds. Jason was 6-10 inside the arc. Shafic 4-6 inside the arc. They need to stick to what is working if they want to end the season with a winning record. Luckily 4 of the next 5 games for them are very winnable. The tough part of their schedule is over.

Mohamed almost had more rebounds than the entire Mombasa team, and they still lost. They played Mombasa without their two best players. This was their shot to steal one from one of the best teams in MB. Unfortunately, even with Jawad dropping 32, they couldn’t steal it.

L-Rod was definitely the player of the game with 14 points and 17 boards. If you told me Amir would be tied for 3rd in points on his team this game, I would have sworn they took an L. “The Other Guys” led them to victory.

Lost by 41. I would normally talk about how AMP was not present, but Mo wasn’t present either, so they cancel each other out. Kabul’s other players are just that much better than Cairo’s other players. They also had Aly foul out of the game and forced to play with 4. Attendance kills.

It is not often we don’t see one player on the team hit double digits. We are coming off a week where a team had six players in double digits. Not one person on this team had the hot hand. In fact, all of their hands must’ve been in the freezer before this game. The team shot 12-51 (23.5%) from the field and 5-33 (15.2%) from behind the arc, and also added 16 turnovers. This might be the beginning of the end for the once great Suba squad.

Fez is a team they should have been able to keep it close with. Losing to them by 19 isn’t a good sign, especially when they have Dhaka coming up next week.

They beat a struggling Damascus team, but Timmy can carry this team only so far. He has Dondre, but Moe is having his worst shooting season of his MB career. Thomas has to be a better GM this offseason and make this team as competitive as they were last season.

Losing by 8 to the only undefeated team in the league is actually kind of impressive. Other than Adam’s poor shooting performance, the team played very well. With their remaining schedule, they can definitely grab 2 or 3 more Ws before playoffs.

Remember when this team complained about being ranked too low? That didn’t age well. They are now sitting at 1-4 after losing to Baghdad by 13. Yikes. I wonder who was missing this time.

Kyseem vs. Kazan. The team shot 1-16 from 3 (6.3%). Like I said the week prior, the only way Lagos has a chance of winning is if both Kyseem and Hosam are both present. Even then, it isn’t likely.

They put up a decent fight, but couldn’t stop Anas or Mo. If they play the way they did this game against Cairo, they have a shot of winning. They also have to hope AMP doesn’t play again.

Put up a really good fight against Beirut. They let the game slip away in the second half. This team is very young, and if they keep playing together year after year they might be able to build some chemistry.

New team on the bottom! They lost by 69 points, and almost let two players have a triple-double. They couldn’t stop anyone. I wonder if Malik still has something cooking.