Rainbow Milk and Abdul Latif Jameel-CDC qualified for the semifinals in their divisions as the knockout rounds started to take shape deep into the eliminations of the 7-division Microsoft Lumia & 36th FBA Basketball Tournament at the Sheraton Jeddah Hotel court.

Rainbow Milk completed a Week 14 double, beating Lifestyle 80-78 in the third game Thursday and Legends 67-61 Friday to improve its record to 6-2 with a game in hand in the Inter-Company C Division. Hallyn with 21 points for Rainbow was the Best Player in the game vs. Legends with teammate Gadiana earning the same accolade against Lifestyle.

Idle Junbarkads (Maharlikans) of Jun Mejia at 5-1 is widely tipped to follow Rainbow into the next round with three other teams namely Saudi German Hospital (5-2), ALJ United Leasing Co. (4-2) and AVK (4-2) fighting for the two other semifinal berths in the division.

ALJ-CDC finished the round robin eliminations at 4-1 after a hard 86-85 victory over Nexus but will have to wait for other games to finish if it were to get the No. 1 ranking in the six-team Inter-Commercial Open Non-Rated.

Jay Liam hit a topscoring 28 points and validated his selection as Best Player by converting the marginal free-throws in the game. Barry Nader added 21 points and Malik Ampuan had 10 for CDC. Four Nexus players hit double figures with Amparado on 24, Reloj 17, Montejo 11 and Pascua 10. The loss put Nexus in a triple tie with Maharlikans and Princeton at 2-1.

Vicky & Sams Pride struck for 31 first-quarter points while limiting the enemy to 13 to score a crucial 87-60 triumph over Princeton in the Inter-Company A.

While the win boosted VSP to 2-2 in a tie with its victim it has to deal with tough assignments in KIA Motors (3-1) and Al Saady Trading (1-3) in a bid to stay in contention for one of two final spots in the division.

Best Player Nemitz Dangao scored 15 points for VSP, which also netted 19 points from Amparado, 17 from Pascua, 12 from Montejo and 10 from Romero.

AMI Pioneer also enjoyed a double in Inter-Company D to finish the eliminations on 5-5, a record that is considered a long shot for a place in the semis with 11 teams entered.

AMI brought down Huta 81-72 in the first game Thursday then followed this with a 76-70 victory over McVities in the third game Friday.

Adjudged Best Players were Mohamed in the game vs. Huta and Villegas in the McVities match.

Unlike AMI Toyota Forklift (Otex) remains in contention at 5-3 following its 81-64 demolition of Wafu Wafy Tropa Feeps (1-5).

Elsewhere, AVK defeated Maaden (MGBM) 90-80, Saudia downed Hanco Olive 76-60 in Inter-Company B and JCF hammered out a 64-63 win in Inter-Company D.

Microsoft Lumia is the major sponsor of the tournament organized in partnership with Team-Up Event Management headed by Mustafa Al-Saady and Rashad Barmada.

The tournament co-sponsors are House of Donuts (Nassier Group) of Samir Nassier, Halalat of Nawaf Tabah (PR Manager) and Centerpoint-Lifestyle & Parfumes Charriol Paris of Deo Francis Vistal and Elealo Janiola.