Manama bow to Chinese club

TDT | Manama    

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain basketball champions Manama Club lost to Chinese Basketball Association representatives Zhejiang Golden Bulls 78-95 yesterday in their concluding preliminary round game of the 33rd FIBA Intercontinental Cup, currently being held in Singapore.

The defeat in Group B followed their loss to German side Telekom Baskets Bonn 50-105 on Thursday, and the Bahrainis will now play for fifth place overall in the tournament.

They will take on the thirdranked side from Group A following tomorrow’s last fixtures of the preliminaries.

Group A features Basketball Champions League Americas winners Sesi Franca from Brazil, Basketball Africa League champions Al Ahly from Egypt, and the NBA G League Ignite from the US.

In yesterday’s loss, Manama trailed 15-23 at the end of the first quarter and then were down 37-46 at the half.

In the third, they were outscored by 11, 21-32, and never recovered. They faced deficits as big as 24 points the rest of the way.

Sir’Dominic Pointer scored 19 points to spearhead the Bahraini side, while Ahmed Salman added 16 and Latavious Williams scored 10.

For the Golden Bulls, Reginald Perry had 17 as their top scorer while Jarmar Gulley added 15 and Malik Newman 14.

Manama are competing in the six-team tournament as the first-ever Bahraini club to participate in the prestigious FIBA competition.

They qualified as the first-ever champions of the FIBA West Asia Super League.