Muslim Basketball

out of the four top 4 seeds, the most likely to be upset. Y’all heard it hear first. 

Once upon a time, a handful of Medina players called Mecca home. Turns out only Anas received the pregame video tribute (Malik wasn’t in attendance due to lack of respect from his former squad). All jokes aside, Medina is built to win games like this, low scoring, defensive slug fests. Palermo is no team to take lightly as they have defeated some of the league’s best this season. Should be a good one.

Probably should be much lower due to their poor first half performance against a bottom dweller, but fortunately for them, they woke up in the second half. Awful shooting as a whole, good thing they locked up defensively when it mattered most. 

Best stat of the night, they held Delhi to 9 total FGs. And although they got outrebounded 35 to 23, that did not hurt them because of the pressure they kept on Delhi’s guards. Jawad woke up with a season high 17 and 4 3pointers made. Zubi’s added 23 with Biggz putting 10, 5 and 5. Backend of the schedule looks easy on paper but not one they should take lightly. Fun fact: The Zubi’s are 1 for their last 14 from 3. Perhaps they lost their touch. 

They shot 30 percent from the field. Shot 22 from the 3 and turned the ball over 18 times. Very very sloppy team performance from a team that had put together 3 wins in a row. We know the type of players Anas and Billal are, but Malik and Jawad need to step it up these next 4 games. Both are capable of much more. I see both of them using this week’s game to get them rolling for the remainder of the season. 

Their last game was a bit too close for comfort, but despite the fact that they were short 3 key players, they came away with the win. Anas Zubi with a game high 26 and Billal flirted with a triple double. Hope they have a full squad if they want to have a chance in defeating Mombasa. 

They limited Ed’s and Netti’s production yet somehow gave up 63 points to a Jakarta team without Kenny and Jason. And they almost blew ANOTHER HALFTIME LEAD. Not sure how Captain Himey sleeps at night with these late minute defensive meltdowns. Next up, Sana’a.    

Another solid first half for this team, followed by another atrocious second half. Fortunately for them, they escaped with the victory. Very impressive shooting day from Billal. Tough matchup next week against a much more physical Jakarta squad. 

Himey brought back the core that lost in the finals a few seasons back while sprinkling in some new pieces. Big men Ammar and Yusef to anchor the paint and another scorer in Malik. This team had a very comfortable lead early in the game but turnovers and a few defensive errors late in the game proved to be the difference. Overall, I see them being contenders with their offensive weapons. Anas and/or Billal will be weekly names in the MVP conversation.