Muslim Basketball

Delhi is rollin' baby. 4 scorers at 10+ and a total of 78 points this week is the second-highest score this season. Team captain Ayan Khan has really stepped up into a leadership role as the team's Point Guard and primary scorer, a few more big performances could have him in the race for MVP this year. Next week, they'll have their chance to get their only loss back against Al-Andalus. Delhi has done a great job forcing turnovers and capitalizing on defensive mismatches all season. They join 3 other teams in the race for the 1st seed.

A forfeit loss is an unfortunate result for these guys this week, not enough players could attend. The loss of Adam is still a huge one, and now, they've lost their big-man Usman Shaw. Defense and rebounding are going to be key factors for them moving forward.

Mecca gets bailed in some ways with a free win this week. Although, the way they've been rolling as of late, I'm sure they wanted to prove themselves on the court. Now involved in a FOUR-way tie for the first seed. The last 2 weeks are gonna get reaaaallly interesting. 

The +1 in the win collum is just about the only good thing you can say about Al-Andalus this week. Medina cracked the code on slowing these guys down, 1. Stopping the fast break and 2. Forcing them into foul trouble. Fouls have been a huge problem for this team all year. The half-court offense looked sluggish and flat. They got the win, but, this was not their best showing, and if teams continue forcing them into half-court sets, they'll have to adjust quickly or we may see them tumble down the standings. 

Medina had their best game in terms of on-court performance this week against Al-Andalus. Consider this, Al-Andalus, after 3 weeks with injuries, was finally back at full strength, and Medina lost their clear-cut top player Omar A after only 2 minutes. They forced DOUBLE overtime, where they lost in sudden death. The key was the defense of Medina. They shut down the fast break all day, forcing Al-Andalus into half-court offense, where they looked discombobulated. They need to carry this defensive momentum and start supplementing it with some offensive continuity. 

Missing Muhammad R and Kyle Trexler this week really hurt Tarim. Their offense still just hasn't been able to get the wheels spinning in the right direction. You'd like to see more aggressiveness on offense, but outside of their 2 20 PPG scorers, there just hasn't been enough. It's on the whole team, to perform better and try and pull some wins out in these last couple weeks.