BASKETBALL – BAHRAIN’S senior men’s basketball national team head coach Georgios Vovoras has visited two of the kingdom’s most promising young players overseas who are currently student-athletes in the US.
Somto Patrick Onoduenyi is enrolled at Modesto Christian School in Modesto, California, while Hassan Oshobuge Abdulqader is studying at Bella Vista College Prep in Phoenix, Arizona.
Fifteen-year-old Onoduenyi and 16-year-old Abdulqader are two of the kingdom’s highly touted youngsters who helped propel Bahrain’s youth national team to a number of gold medals last year. Among them was their title triumph in the 22nd U16 Arab Basketball Championship for Youth in Cairo, Egypt, where Onoduenyi was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player.
The towering frontcourt pair – both of whom are six feet, 10 inches in height – also spearheaded the nationals to the crown in the Fiba U16 Asia Cup Gulf Basketball Association Qualifiers 2025, before helping them reach the quarter-finals in last year’s Fiba U16 Asia Cup.
Vovoras made his visits to follow up on their technical and physical development. The Greek tactician was accompanied by senior men’s national team assistant coach Ahmed Aziz.
The Bahrain delegation was briefed on the educational and sporting environment at the schools. They also held co-ordination meetings with school administration and technical staff, in addition to meeting with the sports agents in charge of the players’ development plan, where the importance of continuing co-ordination was emphasised to ensure a balance between his academic commitments and his competitive programme, while maintaining his connection with Bahrain’s senior men’s national team.
Vovoras is also scheduled to visit Bahrain’s other player currently in the US as a student-athlete – Muzamil Ameer, who is enrolled at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana.
Nicholls’s men’s basketball team compete in division one men’s basketball in the 2025-26 season of the Southland Conference in the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) in the US.
Ameer is already one of the top talents on the kingdom’s senior men’s squad. The six-foot, six-inch 24-year-old helped spearhead Bahrain to their first-ever title in the Gulf Basketball Association (GBA) Championship for National Teams in 2024.
He also made regional basketball history in 2023, becoming the first Gulf national to play in ‘March Madness’ – the NCAA’s annual division one men’s basketball tournament. Earlier, in 2021, Ameer became the kingdom’s first-ever student-athlete to play in the NCAA’s top men’s basketball division.
The visits of Vovoras and Aziz reflect the Bahrain Basketball Association’s keenness to follow up on their players abroad and to closely monitor their levels, which supports their development and enhances the national team’s readiness for upcoming events, especially given their massive potential to be amongst the future pillars of Bahraini basketball.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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