BASKETBALL – Bahrain’s senior men’s basketball national team have begun their preparations for their upcoming competitions in the coming weeks.
The kingdom’s squad are practising at the Bahrain Basketball Association (BBA) Arena in Um Al Hassam Sports Complex under the supervision of head coach Slobodan Subotic from Slovenia and his staff.
They will be playing in the second edition of the Bahrain International Basketball Tournament, scheduled for Thursday to Saturday next week, as part of the lead-up to the second round of pre-qualifiers for the Fiba Asia Cup 2029, set to take place in Zouk Mikael, Lebanon from November 27 to 30.
The first training session was attended by BBA vice-president Nader Al Awadhi and other BBA officials.
The Bahrainis have a 12-player squad gearing up for their two upcoming competitions.
The team list includes Mustafa Hussain, Ahmed Salman, Ahmed Alderazi, JaKarr Sampson, Mohammed Juma’a, Ahmed Bindayneh, Mohammed Ameer, Mahmood Abbas, Abdulqader Thani, Mohammed Ghazi, Hamad Faisal, and Murtadha Salman.
The Bahrain International Basketball Tournament will feature the senior men’s squads of Syria, the UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain. Two games will be played on Thursday – the first between Syria and the UAE at 6pm to be followed by Kuwait going up against hosts Bahrain at 8pm.
The winners of each game will then lock horns in the final at 8pm next Saturday, while the losers will battle for third place earlier that same evening at 6pm.
In round two of pre-qualification for the Fiba Asia Cup 2029, Bahrain are one of 12 teams in this stage.
They are in Group E alongside Palestine, Kazakhstan, the UAE, Kuwait, and Sri Lanka, while Group F is composed of Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, Fiji, and hosts Mongolia, with those fixtures set to be played in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
The Bahrainis made it through to this phase after winning all four of their Group A fixtures in the first round of pre-qualifying held in Dubai, the UAE, in August and September. All teams carry forward their results from that phase into the second round.
The top four teams from each second round group will make it to the Fiba Asia Cup 2029 qualifiers, joining the 16 automatically qualified teams by virtue of their participation in the Fiba Asia Cup 2025 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The Fiba Asia Cup 2029 qualifiers will then comprise three international windows, followed by two Fiba Asia Cup 2029 qualifying tournaments for third-placed teams to ascertain the 16 nations that will feature in the continental showcase.
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