BASKETBALL – Bahrain’s youth basketball national team enjoyed a rousing start to their title bid yesterday in the 22nd U16 Arab Basketball Championship for Youth, which has gotten underway in Cairo, Egypt.
The Bahrainis routed Gulf rivals Qatar 90-58 at the Cairo Stadium Indoor Halls Complex at the Egyptian capital.
The nationals, who are reigning champions of the Gulf Basketball Association (GBA), used a scintillating third quarter performance to turn a deficit at the break to a big lead.
Bahrain trailed 15-18 at the end of the opening quarter and the Qataris stayed ahead 31-36 after the second. But the Bahrainis came alive in the third, where they held their opponents to just nine points while pouring in 31 of their own to take a commanding 62-45 advantage into the final frame.
There, they maintained their fine play enroute to closing out their emphatic, 32-point victory.
Their young interior partnership of Somto Patrick Onoduenyi and Hassan Oshobuge Abdulkadir played a key role for the nationals, who are coached by Rasem Al Marzouki. The pair nearly had triple doubles, with Onoduenyi scoring 24 points, grabbing 16 rebounds, and registering a whopping eight steals, while Abdulkadir posted 22 points, 11 rebounds, and seven steals.
Skipper Aly Hussein added 14 points while backcourt mate Mohammed Ghuloom chipped in with 10.
Mouhamadou Dip paced Qatar with 22 points and 14 rebounds while Azzam Yakan contributed 15 in the loss.
This year’s U16 Arab Basketball Championship for Youth is being played with six nations in the mix. It has been organised and is being run by the Arab Basketball Confederation (ABC), in cooperation with the Egyptian Basketball Federation.
In another fixture on yesterday’s opening day programme, Tunisia posted a lopsided 78-41 win against Kuwait.
The Bahrainis next take on Algeria today at 3pm and then go up against the Kuwaitis on Tuesday at 1pm. Following a rest day, they are back in action on Thursday against Tunisia at 1pm, before completing their tournament campaign on Friday against the host Egyptians at 7pm. All times are Bahrain.
At the end of a single round-robin, the top two teams on the standings qualify directly for the gold medal game.
The nationals are playing in this the Arab Basketball Confederation competition after winning in July the Fiba U16 Asia Cup Gulf Basketball Association Qualifiers 2025. Their title-winning campaign saw them win all four of their games in the championship, which was hosted by the kingdom. They thus also punched their tickets – along with Saudi Arabia – to this year’s Fiba U16 Asia Cup, to be held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, next month.
Bahrain’s participation in Cairo comes as part of the Bahrain Basketball Association’s strategy to support and hone young talent through strong competition in regional and international events.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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