JEDDAH, 8 February — At the Jeddah Hall, the mighty Al-Ittihad basketball squad rampaged to their 12th straight win in the Saudi Basketball Club Championship with an overwhelming 120-29 victory over Al-Nasser.
Ittihad, which tangle this week with an equally strong Al-Ohod, are mainly a team that thrive on set-up plays devised by their coach Ali Sanhani, formerly of the Saudi national seniors team. The ballclub, which is the same outfit that won last year’s Asian Ballclubs Championship in Dubai is powered upfront by the popular Saudi national cager Ali Maghraby and Shannon Taylor.
Taylor, Ittihad’s 25 year-old sensational playmaker, won two state championships for Ventura Junior College and was MVP for Bullard East Washington in the high school division.
The other members of the team under manager Mohammed Khamis consist of Adel Jehani, Mohammed Meberek, Mohsen Marwani, Abdullah Rihan, Nader Aman, Jaber, Othman Falatah and powerful center-forward Green.
Preserving the integrity of Pinoy basketball leagues
Carrying the corporate name especially in such a case where it happens to be the principal sponsor of a particular tournament inadvertently creates a lot of great expectations on both parties involved. There is an enormous pressure on the squad being sponsored and doubly so on the league organizers.
This could turn into Dr. Jekyll-Hyde dilemma, which had plagued various Pinoy basketball leagues all around Jeddah. To have a principal sponsor to back up one’s league is undeniably the biggest blessing but many league organizers have gone to the extent of harming their reputation in the process. It has happened a lot of time in the past that some league organizers — from the impression going abuse among faithful cage followers — have gone to such detrimental act of ensuring the team that is backed up by the principal sponsor would end up champion. Or, figure out in the finals, at the least.
At least from some people’s viewpoint the allegation could have been true. One example that could either support or run contrary to the notion was the previous 2nd SCBA Prince-Lu BiC invitational basketball tournament last year.
Prince Lu, a team mentored by Abdurahman Shaheen and made up of King Abdul Aziz University standouts led then by the likes of sharp-shooting Ali Sanhani and national junior standouts Mahmood Al Towal and Badullah won the open rated championship all right. However, the other sponsored-team, BiC ended up a dismal fourth in the inter-company bonafide division.
In Prince Lu’s winning the title, it could have been understandable since it has a line-up much too strong than the rest. Even then, they went through the wringer necessitating an overtime to pull the victory over their rivals Bonny Milk. BiC was considerably strong too but encountered rough sailing and therein the suspicious notion stalled. Like Prince Lu, BiC was left to its own device, matches were not manipulated and the teams were not upgraded in mainstream.
The Arrow Food Distribution Company brand manager Matthew Makaraem said he would have wished to see BiC cop championship trophy as well but was satisfied with the way the league went where the playing field was rendered level for all. SCBA president Talat Alam commented that objectivity should be the primordial concern of league organizers and it is the only way to keep a league healthy. He said that should any team be deserving to play in the championship, it should find itself there, without any hint of machination regardless if the team is backed by a sponsor or not.
