Basketball – BAHRAIN’S final line-up is set for the boys’ 3x3 basketball competition in the third Asian Youth Games in the kingdom.
After preparing for their tournament with a training roster of seven players, the final four were selected as action is set to begin on Thursday at the Bahrain Basketball Association Arena in Um Al Hassam Sports Complex.
The kingdom’s side are to be spearheaded by Somto Patrick Onoduenyi, who was the Most Valuable Player in leading Bahrain to the gold medal at the 22nd U16 Arab Basketball Championship for Youth in Cairo, Egypt, last August.
Fellow-Arab champions Hassan Abdulkadir and Yousif Yaqoob Meshaei are also on the squad, which is completed by Sergey Sikij.
There are 22 nations in all in the boys’ competition. They are divided into four groups for the preliminary round. Bahrain are in a tough Pool B that also includes China, India, Kyrgyzstan, and Indonesia.
“We have chosen our final four players and we are ready for the start of our competition,” Bahrain head coach Murtadha Mohammed, who has been gearing up the kingdom’s youngsters alongside Serbian tactician Bogdan Dragovic, told the GDN yesterday.
“We played a few friendly games in the last couple of days and our guys showed good teamwork and conditioning. We have a couple of more tune-up contests before Thursday, and all our players now know what we need from them and what are our goals – how to play on offence and defence and how to beat other teams mentally and physically.
“We will try our best to do something in this Asian Youth Games in Bahrain – it will be the historic first medals in 3x3, and we are determined to achieve our target of getting on the podium.”
Pool A in the boys’ tournament features Mongolia, Turkmenistan, Chinese Taipei, Jordan, and the UAE. Pool C is composed of Qatar, Thailand, Uzbekistan, the Maldives, Palestine, and Cambodia; while Pool D comprises Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Iran, Sri Lanka, Yemen, and Bangladesh.
Games in the preliminaries will be played from until Sunday. Following a single round-robin, the top two teams from each pool move on to the knockouts, which will be held on Monday next week. The semis and final will also take place the same day.
There is also a girls’ 3x3 basketball competition in this year’s Asian Youth Games, starting on Thursday as well at the BBA Arena. Fourteen teams are competing.
In Pool A of their preliminary round are China, Kazakhstan, Chinese Taipei, Iran, Uzbekistan, Jordan, and the UAE; while in Pool B are Mongolia, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, the Maldives, and Palestine.
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