Muslim Basketball

Welp, looks like they are picking up right where they left off. Insert Anssoumane Kande in the Wajid role and could it be possible that they improved?!?!? The rookie had a stellar debut with 18 and 7 and went 4-9 from 3. Jay Wiggins led all scorers with 26 points and Big Moose got in on the fun with a 10 and 11. The Yanes brothers are in midseason form with 55 claps per minute. Jokes aside the defensive backcourt made life difficult for the Al-Bireh guards. Defense wins championships and this team certainly prides themselves on that, and clapping. I swear I’m done lol.

Ummmmmm Moe Thirty???? Muhammad Mustafa with a career night scoring 36 points on 10-17 from deep. Certainly, in the running for POTW, as we have a plethora of options this week. Mr. Shiesty got reacquainted with the three-point line in week 1 and shot 4-8 himself. Quiet night for last season’s ROTY but it wasn’t needed. And oh yeah, missing their star point guard Omar Singer. The Avengers are going to be lethal this season.

42 points on 16-22 from the field and 9-14 from three is different. He also grabbed 14 rebounds and dished out 6 assists. Mahdy may have not been ROTW, but the brother is aiming for MVP status this season. His running mate and all world guard Hassan Chaabane with a modest 18 points, 9 assists and 5 rebounds. Perhaps the most lethal 1-2 punch in the league and with a solid supporting cast of Rugrats, they should be a handful all season

The theme of the night was clearly 30 pieces and newcomer Ty Jackson wanted in on the fun. 37 points on 13-21 from the field with 10 rebounds is an extremely impressive debut, and most importantly they got the win. Don’t be fooled by the box score because this team has a multitude of scorers and as we’ve come to learn, next week can be anyone else’s turn.

Is Zain back to being the Zain of old? 13 points, 11 rebounds and 7 assists would indicate so. Sheikh Idris led Baysan with 18 points, knocking down 6 threes. Jared returned to MB and did so with a double-double. Sohaib also flirted with a triple double!!! They hit 10 threes as a group and did so without Sal…..Yeah, they’ll be fine.

Rumor has it that Towfeek is looking for his quarter zip and heading back to his coaching gig. All jokes aside, the much-anticipated return did have flashes. Rookie Mohammed Alzubidi led Al-Bireh with 18 points although not the most efficient. Amir Hassan and Koyas each had 11 and Shafic had an extremely uncharacteristic game. This team may have the most skilled starting lineup and I don’t expect them to be 0-2 this time next week.

AMP is back, and he brought family/friends. Balanced scoring effort from this group as they had five guys all score 9+ points. Not to mention they outrebounded Al-Quds and shot a higher percentage across the board. Impressive statement win to start the season, especially a team that most consider to be contenders.

Farhad and Ed are the duo we all didn’t know we needed, with the former leading all scorers with 28 points. Solid contributions from Tariq Yasin and Hosam Karkis. I may be underselling this team right now, but need to see more out of them before I can feel confident about ranking them higher.

Perhaps the most shocking win of the night comes from Safad! Jawad Tamimi and Fursan balled out as they combined for 45 of the team’s 71. This team is made up of a bunch of 3 and D guys that no one wants to go up against. A lot of high basketball IQ on this team as well. Nice win fellas.

To the surprise of many, not mine, but to many, they almost pulled out the win. Kareem led the way with 18 points, with OQ and Muhanad adding 15 and 10 respectively. Quiet game from Omar Hussein and Deep Patel. If they can compete with one of the league’s best with on “average” shooting, they are going to be dangerous when they catch fire.

How does Omar Abbassi reward me for calling him the best shooter in the league? By going 1-8…. C’mon man, that’s how people get fired! Luckily for him, that kind of thing does not happen often and should be back to himself come next week. As for the rest of the team, no one really got it going as the only person to shoot a decent percentage was Jean, going 4-6 but only grabbing three rebounds is baffling. I do expect better performances from Amir and Mustafa but as I have mentioned and probably will mention again, it’s only week 1.

I may regret ranking them this high because this game was sloppy. Newcomer Jay Mustafa led the way with 26 points on 4-8 from and 8 steals! Looking at the box score, they really should have lost this game, but an ugly win is still a win.

No Jake but Ian Felix was in his bag! 37 points on 14-19 from the field, with 5 boards 3 assists and 2 steals. Moe Rayyan had 14 of his own but not much production from the rest. Hamza Abdelghani should be taking no less than 10 shots a game and I think he should be more involved offensively. Interested in seeing how the Jake – Ian dynamic will work.

MB once had a 30+ league, and last night on Court 2 was the debut of our new 40+ league. We may have fumbled the bag and missed our chance of having this be in the new Rogaine for men campaign, but back to hoops. A-Fay made his return and is now in sole possession of 2^nd place on the all-time scoring list. Big O and co will look to get in the win column next week against Safad.

Nablus was handing out sweets all right, but it was in the form of wide open 3 pointers. In their defense they were without their best player in Abdelhadi as well as presumably another starter in Mo Amin. With Malik struggling from 3, it was Medo Zubi who led the team in scoring with 24 points. Unfortunate we didn’t get to see this matchup with them at full strength.

So they were without Omar Mana, but they kept it close the entire game. Elias was their leading scorer on this night as he knocked down 5-10 from three. Ahmad Saleh and Shahzaib each had 10 and once Mana does return, that will only lead to more open shots and more fast break buckets.

Tough matchup for them, especially with them trying to add Aadil into the fold. Gaza did shoot lights out and more times than not, teams aren’t going to go 50% from three. Not having Omar Doumani yesterday did hurt as he provides them with another ball handler and scorer. I trust that they will be fine.

Its week one, a bunch of new faces to the league so I won’t be too hard on them. As the podcast had so accurately predicted, Ali Baig did get buckets and led his team in scoring.