JEDDAH (Saudi Arabia) - Al Qadsia SC escaped Ittihad Club by way of a thrilling 62-60 result to lay their two-game losing skid to rest in the 2024/2025 FIBA West Asia Super League (WASL) at a packed Green Basketball Court on Monday night.
The visiting side from Kuwait overcame a tepid start and gained control of the game late in the fourth quarter, but still needed to repel a furious fightback by the home team in the dying seconds to book their third win of the tournament.
With the victory, the crew of Coach Joey Stiebing has taken the provisional lead in Group B with a 3-2 record after bringing their Saudi Arabian counterparts down to 2-3 as the 2-2 deadlock among all four teams in the pool finally got broken.
Game heroes: Arinze Chidom top-scored for Qadsia with 19 points and 9 rebounds, while Chinemelu Elonu tallied a double-double of 15 points and 16 rebounds as the two were crucial in establishing a good lead late in the final period.
Elonu first converted on a dunk off his own miss, before Chidom nailed a trey from the top of the key to push the spread to 61-54 with 1:32 remaining.
Sayed Akbar produced 16 points as the trio delivered on a night that Phil Greene IV prematurely left the game in the second quarter apparently due to an injury.
Turning point: Akbar himself was responsible in pushing Qadsia to the driver's seat for good in the fourth quarter, nailing back-to-back lay-ups to break the tie and give themselves the 52-48 advantage with under six minutes to go.
But as mentioned, they still needed to overcome a late rally by Ittihad, which saw Mathna Almarwani pull his team to within just a field goal, 62-60, following a conversion from point-blank with only 3.7 seconds to spare.
They even had the chance to at least tie the game when a stop got them the ball back, but Almarwani turned it over as he couldn't inbound properly.
They said: "It was absolutely necessary because our goal is to finish first in our group, We got Arabi next week, which beat us last time. They're a very good team, they won the Arab Club Championship in September so it will be a tough game for us. Every night, it's gonna be tough. We expect that. We'll be prepared and hopefully, we come away with the win." - Joey Stiebing, Head Coach, Al Qadsia SC
"It was a great fight on defense. We lost our point guard, Phil, but we stepped up ... As you see, this group is tough. Every game is 50-50. The key is defense, and today we did great defense, and we won." - Sayed Akbar, Al Qadsia SC
"We need to go to win (against Manama). We showed that we can play outside of Jeddah especially last week. When you have a game, and you still have a chance, you need to go play to win." - Slobodan Subotic, Head Coach, Ittihad Club
FIBA