Muslim Basketball

Winners of nine straight and most of which have not been close. They’ve jelled into a dominant force on both sides of the ball. They have all the necessary pieces to win any kind of game.They can run up and down the court, they can pick teams apart in the half court, and they can straight up defend. Terrific season after what appeared to be a potential end to the Mombasa empire. Raza with another unbelievable year - the MVP runner up had a career scoring season, averaging 18.2 while grabbing 6 boards and dishing a hair under 5 assist per game. You can bet though, that he won’t be posting his stats on social media **cough, Abdul, cough** until his squad wins their last game of the post season. He and his teammates have a clear understanding of what the ultimate goal is and they expect nothing less.

Nothing new here.

Too many weapons that can kill you from any direction. Extremely balanced team that executes how they want to, when they want to. Daniel may be the most efficient big man in the league - he plays with very soft hands, almost always catching the ball on the first try and finishing nicely under the rim. Him and Weiss are often the beneficiaries of Raza and Sadat’s aggression - when teams lay off of Raza and Sadat to pay attention to Mombasa’s front court, same result ensues - Mombasa gets what it wants. Add the extremely patient and opportunistic play of ‘Yo Shah’ and boy do you have a very difficult team to play against.

Impressive win without Weiss. He might not load up the box score, but his impact offensively running the baseline and orchestrating the defense it significant. My X-factor, Yousef went full on Muj and added some rain to the very humid Alexandrian summer. As per usual, Raza did his thing and Sadat made impact plays. Another team that can and should finish at 9-1. It might take 2 months to see them in another competitive game if they continue to play at this level.

Held Popal to a ‘pedestrian’ 26 points, but more impressive, they cannot be guarded. Raza is looking to become back-to-back MVP, Yousef put in another solid game, Weiss and Daniel will challenge any front court, and Sadat finds ways to impact the game discreetly. They are built to give Sana’a their toughest challenge - we’ll have to wait until the postseason to see that dandy of a matchup.

Yousef. Sadat. Raza. Very difficult "backcourt" to guard. Weiss continues his great play underneath, Raza continues to get to the hole, Sadat looked like he found it again, and Yousef is the X-Factor. He'll always be seen as "Muj's little brother", but, very strong but, he will have the chance to help Raza guide Mombasa back on top. He can do a lot of things to make defenses relax on Raza and open up more paint space for Weiss. He's shown so far that when he has the chance to make an impact, he makes a heck of one. Look for him to take advantage of the mismatches teams will be forced to defend him with. If they focus on him, Raza and Weiss will continue to load up the stat sheets. Very complete team with weapons all around.

Raza looks like he’s picking up where he left off after last season’s MVP campaign. He’s seeing the whole floor, dictating what the defense does, then exploits it. Weiss continues to be a menace down low, grabbing boards and finding creases along the baseline. Even though they didn’t show it in this performance, Yousef and Sadat will have to match the level of play Raza has been providing if they hope to continue climbing.

Not sure how long they can stay out of the top 10 with Raza dropping 22 and filling out the entire stat sheet with a supersized sharpie (11 rebounds, 7 assists, 5 steals, 0 turnovers) and with Youssef out there just being smooth. Daniel added 9 points and 11 rebounds, Sadat dished 8 times. Let’s see the consistent success now.

Hate placing them this low, but they just seemed out of wack in their opener against a much improved Suba. They played without Gurg, but that doesn’t excuse their lackadaisical rebounding or poor 3-point shooting. Raza, Weiss, and Sadat all need to do more if they plan of reestablishing themselves at the top of D2.