BASKETBALL – PERFECT Bahrain completed a clean sweep of their five games last night in the preliminary round of the 22nd U16 Arab Basketball Championship for Youth in Cairo, Egypt.
The nationals wrapped up their campaign in the tournament’s opening phase with a hard-earned 80-72 victory over hosts Egypt at Cairo Stadium Indoor Halls Complex.
The Bahrainis ended the second quarter with a 9-0 run to go into the half with a 41-36 lead, and they never looked back from there.
They pulled away in the third and enjoyed leads as big as 19 points early in the final frame, but then had to stave off a late Egyptian charge in which the hosts got back to within five points.
The nationals did enough in the closing seconds en route to maintaining their pristine record.
Twin towers of Somto Patrick Onoduenyi and Hassan Abdulkadir were once again the driving force for Bahrain. Onoduenyi had a monster effort of 19 points and 19 rebounds while frontcourt mate Abdulkadir added 18 points and 13 boards.
With the result, Bahrain confirmed their spot in first place on the six-team standings to end the round-robin stage. They are now headed to the tournament’s gold medal game where they will face Algeria, who finished the preliminaries as runners-up with a 4-1 win-loss record. The final is scheduled for tomorrow following a rest day today.
Egypt, Tunisia, Kuwait, and Qatar followed on the table.
This year’s U16 Arab Basketball Championship for Youth has been organised and is being run by the Arab Basketball Confederation (ABC), in cooperation with the Egyptian Basketball Federation.
Yesterday’s win for Bahrain followed four successive routs against Qatar, Algeria, Kuwait, and Tunisia. They won each game by more than 20 points, with their biggest triumph being a 32-point thrashing of the Qataris. The result last night was their only victory in single digits.
The Egyptians had an inspired start to the contest and took a 20-18 lead at the end of the first quarter. But Bahrain went on their game-changing rally before the half, and then extended the gap to 61-45 after three.
A split from the free-throw line by Hassan Fouad then gave them their biggest gap of the night at 64-45, but Egypt then came alive with one last stand. An Omar Mostaf three-pointer and a Karim Hendi driving lay-up got them to within five points both occasions with less than a minute-and-a-half to go, but the Bahrainis had answers each time and they did well to hold on in the end.
Skipper Aly Hussien scored 16 points and dished out six assists for Bahrain while registering four steals, and Youssef Mashaai had 13 off the bench.
Mohamed Hassan paced Egypt with 15 points, while Mostaf and Hendi finished with 13 apiece in defeat.
The Bahrainis are playing in this ABC competition after winning last month the Fiba U16 Asia Cup GBA Qualifiers 2025. 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.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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