Muslim Basketball

Sarajevo – Another week, another number 1! This one was tough. It was obviously between Sarajevo and Kabul, and I went with Sarajevo solely because they have a 0 in the loss column. Granted, Kabul’s loss was on a forfeit, but there is still a 1 in that column. To be honest, neither team has had a tough schedule. They both have played only one true competitor (Sarajevo beat Beirut, Kabul beat Timbuktu). Sarajevo kept it rolling this week beating Sana’a by 15. They had a new leading scorer this week in Justin Matthews, dropping 28 points and 11 boards. He lit it up from 3, shooting 7-11. That is what is most impressive about this team. Every week can be a different leading scorer. One week it is Aymen, then it is Salim, now it is Justin. They will be at the top until they lose. Three of their last four games are against good teams, so we shall see.

I probably shouldn’t assume, but I am going to anyway. There is no way Ameed played and only recorded 1 rebound on the stat sheet, unless he was injured. Mo had to carry this team to victory, with Khalil being his new partner in crime this game. They most likely will not be challenged until the last week of the season when they play Islamabad.

This team isn’t going anywhere. One loss didn’t knock them off of their game. Farhad and the Asian Assassin went to work, taking care of the Ed-less Jakarta. Next game against a struggling Kazan should be an interesting one.

It is about time I start respecting Dhaka! They are 5-1, with their only loss coming from a top team in Amman. They continue to keep it rolling, and similarly to Sarajevo, they still have so many different guys that can score. Ameer, Farzad, Fahad, and Michael are all averaging double digits. Oh, and don’t forget about big man Salman in the middle.

I say it every week about a team, if your players don’t show up, you won’t win games. In this case, their main guy Pete and their floor general Raza both were not present. Outcome? They lost. The fact remains that if Mombasa has a full roster, I do not think there is a team that can take them down this year.

They keep winning, and next game is essentially a bye week. Like I said last week, we need to fast forward to over a month from now when they play Dhaka. That is when we will see what the Yanes family is really about.

6 games in and this is just the 2nd game Bukhara had more than 5 guys show up. When they have a team, they are a top 5 team in MB. Mustafa destroyed Kazan, dropping 31-5-3-4 on 11-16 shooting. New addition Matthew Cancel has now made an already great team elite. When was the roster change cutoff again?

What happened here? Any given Saturday! Not only did Granada lose to a poorly ranked Lagos squad, they lost by 31. Yikes. I know Jon and Jordan weren’t there, but Anas Najib is a good enough player to lead his team to a win here, or at least not lose by 31.

This was a close matchup the entire game. Idris couldn’t get it going, and they couldn’t stop Suba from behind the arc. Islam had a great game, but wasn’t enough to carry the team to victory. They play Fez next. They cannot go into the game taking them lightly. That is what Islamabad did early last season against weaker opponents and they started off 2-3.

Oh how the might have fallen. No Pat? No win. Who is their second scorer? Is it Anthony? Is it John? Is it Frank? I feel like I have to ask that every week. If everyone contributed a little bit and it resulted in wins then I get it, but that isn’t happening. It doesn’t get easier for them with a matchup against Amman coming up. Next game may knock them out of the top 10. 

Beirut was able to come in and take care of business against a Pete-less and Raza-less Mombasa squad. What are you going to do if the other team’s best players don’t show up? You win. It looks as if when Nick takes less than 10 3s a game, he seems to be way more efficient. Surprising game from Anthony as well. If he can get in on the scoring contribution as well, it would only make them that much harder to beat.

You have to show up to the games to play. Not fielding a team not only hurts your team (tiebreakers), but it is unfair to the other team as well. We all paid the same amount of money. We all want to play. Get it together Tripoli!

This was the game I was waiting for to see if Jakarta can make that significant jump in the rankings. Ed was soaking up the Cali sun, and Joe couldn’t buy a bucket. Kenny and Steve tried to shoulder the load, but came up short. I do think that Kenny and Steve could lead them to a victory against most teams in this league by themselves, but they are going to need the full arsenal of players if they are playing Amman.

Every time I look at a Lahore box score, I go straight to the rebounds to see how many boards Omar grabbed. I did a double take this time. Not only did he drop 30 points, but 34 rebounds?! Is this real life? BOX THAT MAN OUT. I know, easier said than done. A win by 25 definitely warrants some spots on the power rankings, but I am waiting for that statement victory to bring them back towards the top. It won’t happen next game, as they look towards another 25+ point victory against the struggling Riyadh squad.

There is a positive out of losing a tough game. This was only Yama’s second game played this season, but he went from going 0-7 to 7-14. Anas and Mo can definitely use another scorer. The Yanes family got the best of them this game, which leaves Tehran stuck around the middle of the power rankings. They have an undefeated Sarajevo team coming to town next game. A win there will skyrocket their ranking.

Winning by 47 is always impressive, even if it is against the worst team in MB. 106 points. Yikes. 

Although he only took 10 shots, Jawad had a super-efficient day, shooting 7-10 from the field and a perfect 5-5 from behind the arc. For a team that shoots the 3 ball well, it is surprising that they take so little, but they did what they had to do to get the W. 

Clayton and team were not able to stop the undefeated Sarajevo squad. Don’t worry; nobody else was able to do it either. Even after the loss, Sana’a is still one of the best scoring (6th) and rebounding (2nd) teams in the league.

It is actually relieving to see Suba come up with the victory against a very strong Islamabad squad. Aytac finally got some help, and it mostly came from his long time teammate, Sasa. Sasa shot 5-7 from behind the arc, and ended with 16. Suba deserves to be considered a threat again, and this is how it gets started.

Lagos wins by 31! I repeat, Lagos wins by 31! As a sports fan, you always want to root for the underdog, so it is exciting to see this kind of victory. As I stated previous weeks, if Lagos wants to win tough games, which they are 100% capable of doing, they need everyone to show up. It looks as if they had their whole squad there, and they were able to upset Granada. Kyseem was on fire, scoring 29 points while grabbing 5 boards and getting 6 assists. Hopefully they can keep it going against Bukhara.

It is upsetting to see them come so close to beating all these top teams, but always falling short. Losing to Kabul by only 6 shouldn’t be taken as a loss. With performances like these, watch out for them to upset somebody in the playoffs.

Poor Mr. Hassan. My recommendation is that he goes back to Tehran and does the same thing he is doing currently with Mecca for them. It can be the move Tehran needs to push them to the top! A little birdie told me that Ali Omari told Ali Hassan that there is only room for one Ali on Tehran.

This season, they have just been Bad-dad. Okay, bad joke, but seriously. Another situation where I don’t think Tim Brown actually played, so I don’t know how he is 0-1 (unless he got injured). That is happening way too often, and the statistic gentlemen need to do a better job. Moe and Dondre did the most they could, but nobody, and I mean nobody was able to stop Omar from getting rebounds.

Free win. They needed it.

They are in the win column! Rookie Mazin had himself a day, scoring 31 points. It is not easy to score 30+ in MB, so anyone who does it can really ball. I am glad they got away from the dreaded winless season.

AMP just wasn’t able to seal the deal. He couldn’t hit from deep, and it ended up hurting them in the end. I have never seen a team ranked so high preseason get down this low in the middle of the season.

Another decent performance from the young squad. If they keep playing with the intensity that they’ve been playing at, they are bound to steal a win.

Unless a team forfeits, they are 100% going to go winless.