JEDDAH, 12 May 2007 — Saudi Arabia’s Al-Ittihad scored an emphatic 86-66 victory over Egypt’s Al-Jazirah last night in the 20th Arab Basketball Championship at the Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal sports complex here.
Ittihad started slowly and were down by 8 points at the end of the first quarter 18 -10.
Ittihad came out shooting in the second making 7 threes courtesy of Adil Al-Johani with 4 and Tony Madison with 3. By halftime Ittihad led 41 - 39. The teams had committed 28 fouls between them, Egypt 16 and Ittihad 12. Ittihad didn’t pull away until the final 4 minutes of play.
Ittihad’s defense wore the Egyptians down and the Jeddah-based cagers won pulling away.
Madison had 29 points and was perfect from the foul line 13 for 13, Priest Lauderdale and Calvin Warner each made 13 points, while Adil Al Johani had 12 for Ittihad. Jazirah’s high men were Rami Talat Genaidi 18, and Ahmed Mohammed Al-Bari 16. Jazirah committed 31 fouls to Ittihad’s 20. In the first game, Al-Sharjah from the UAE beat Bufrik from Algeria 80-63. UAE led by one 16 to 15 after the first quarter of play. The teams traded baskets fiercely with over 10 lead changes in the first half. Each team scored 20 points in the second period. The third quarter started with UAE 36 and Algeria 35. After three periods only four points separated the teams with UAE leading 54 - 51.
The fourth told the story. UAE broke away scoring 25 points in the period and holding Algeria to only 12. The big difference was the three-point shooting where UAE made 9 and Algeria only 3. UAE pulled down 44 rebounds Algeria only 27. High men for UAE were Andre Pitts 25, Markus Brown 24. For Algeria Sayeed Nabil had 16 and Fham Hussain and Eid Soufeain each made 13.
The fourth game Thursday night pitted Al-Dalasal from Palestine against Al-Arabi from Qatar.
In the first quarter the Qataris showed their dominance and took a 13 point lead 28 - 15 over Palestine. The second period was different and both teams scored only 15 points each. Trading baskets and turning the ball over closed out the half with Qatar still up by 13. In the third period, Qatar went all out and outscored Palestine 30 to 8, leading 73 - 38. Al Arabi from Qatar walked away with the easy win 87 -53 to join opening day winners Raja’a from Morocco, Al-Kuwait from Kuwait and Kingdom team Al-Ahli.
