Manama power into semis

TDT | Manama                                                

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com     

Bahrain’s Manama Club last night barged into the semi-finals of the FIBA West Asia Super League (WASL) Final Eight.

The Bahrainis booked their tickets following an 86-75 victory over Beirut Club of Lebanon in their last Group A assignment in the tournament’s preliminary round.

Manama stepped up to the challenge as they needed nothing less but a win to march through to the final four.

The result against Beirut was their first win of the competition, and they thus finished as runners-up in their pool.

Manama are now set to take on Group B winners BC Astana of Kazakhstan.

Manama lost their opening fixture of the tournament against Al Riyadi, also from Lebanon, and then were also set to take on the Chennai Heats from India, but they had withdrawn from the competition.

Riyadi had also defeated Beirut in their head-to-head, thus setting up yesterday’s winnertake-all affair.

In Group B, Astana swept their preliminary round schedule.

The Kazakhs first beat Shabab Al Ahli of the UAE, Shahrdary Gorgan of Iran and Kuwait SC of Kuwait.

Kuwait took second place and will therefore take on Group A winners Riyadi in the last four.

Both semi-final contests are scheduled to take place tomorrow.

In Manama’s win last night, the Bahrainis took a 22-18 lead at the end of the first quarter and then extended their advantage to 50-38 at the interval.

Alley-oop

Beginning the second half, Manama went ahead by as many as 17 points, 64-47, following an alley-oop dunk by Jeremy Deshawn Evans off an assist from Mustafa Hussain.

But Beirut finished the third quarter strong and they cut the deficit to single digits 58-66, heading into the final canto.

There, Beirut went on a 6-0 run to get back to within just two, but Manama replied with their own rally—a 10-0 spurt— that included four straight points from Ali Hussain and then back-to-back three-pointers from Sir’Dominic Pointer and Travin Thibodeaux, to make it 66-44 with just over five minutes left.

Manama then did well to ride their momentum all the way to the final buzzer.

Five Manama players finished in double figures in a balanced attack.

Mustafa Hussain had 16, Thibodeaux finished with 15 and Pointer chipped in with 14 points.

Mohammed Ameer added 12 for the Bahrainis and Evans scored 10.

Elias Rustom paced Beirut with 15 points while Naim Rabay and Jordan Eric Jackson had 12 apiece.

In this maiden edition of the competition, the WASL Final Eight also acts as a qualifier for FIBA Asia Champions Cup 2023, on the road to FIBA Intercontinental Cup 2023, FIBA’s highest club competition.