Manama trump erstwhile-unbeaten Astana, reach Final 8's Big Dance

DUBAI (United Arab Emirates) - Manama once again showed why they became one of the most exciting teams in the FIBA West Asia Super League (WASL), Friday night.

Receiving a huge lift from their ever-supportive fans that trooped to the Sheikh Saeed Bin Maktoum Sports Hall here, the Bahraini champions took down the erstwhile-undefeated BC Astana in the Final 8 Semi-Finals, 91-81, to book the first ticket to the championship round.

Manama seized control of the match in the third quarter and never let up since on the way to the finale, capping off a run en route to the Big Dance that's a tad similar to what they did in the WASL-Gulf League before ultimately bowing to eventual titlists Kuwait Club.

It could be remembered that the team of Coach Linos Gavriel lost to Kazma in their Qualification to Semi-Finals opener versus Kazma, but came back to win that series. They then swept Al Hilal in the Semis to reach the Final, but lost via sweep in the best-of-3 affair.

This Final 8 saw Manama bow to Al Riyadi in their first game of the Group Phase, but did just enough to beat Beirut Club five days later to catch the last bus to the Semi-Finals.

Now, they're bound for the Finals on Saturday night, where an opportunity to win WASL's biggest prize lies against either Kuwait Club again or WASL- West Asia champions Al Riyadi.

Kuwait Club and Al Riyadi are playing as of this posting. Winner faces Manama, while the losing side will take on Astana in the Third-Place game.

Game heroes: Mosti Rashed submitted his best performance in the Final 8 to date with 23 points, including 18 in the first half alone, to lead Manama in the victory.

Sir'Dominic Pointer provided 20 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, and a steal and a block each in 35 minutes of action. Pointer drained a pair of triples in his performance, none bigger than his last one as it served as the dagger, 87-76, with 1:55 left in the game.

Jeremy Evans delivered 17 points and 11 rebounds, while Travin Thibodeaux added 12 markers.

Ahmed Haji chipped in 11 markers but it was his defense against Karvel Anderson that drew praises from Gavriel. Anderson came into the Semis as the Final 8's top scorer with an average of 24.3 points, but was held to just 7 points on 4 attempts in over 30 minutes of play.

Turning point: Manama were clinging on to a slim two-point lead approaching the four-minute mark of the third canto until Mohammed Hamooda's jumper kick-started a 12-4 run for a 67-57 advantage with less than two minutes remaining in the said period.

Stats don't lie: Manama shot 56.6-percent from the floor and, despite the other team's size advantage, won the rebounding battle, 38-29. 

They said: :"I want to congratulate my players for sticking to the game plan, playing with their hearts out., making right decisions in the game. Big credit to them. It's not an easy thing to come from our competition and generally from the background we have compared to the opponents. They were playing against teams like CSKA Moscow, Lokomotiv in the past. They have huge size. So big credit to my guys for the win." - Linos Gavriel, Head Coach, Manama

"I want to congratulate our club, our players, our coaching staff, and most of all, the fans. They travelled all the way to Bahrain to come and support the team. That was big for us. Astana is a great team. I'm just happy we pulled the win. We'll see what happens tomorrow." - Ahmed Haji, Manama

"Congratulations to the Manama team. I think we didn't execute what we must do on defense. Tonight we only played defense in the last seven minutes, Only. That's all. Manama tonight, simply was better than us." - Oleg Kiselev, Head Coach, BC Astana.

"I feel like  we came in with an offensive mindset. We really didn't come in with the defensive mindset like we did in the previous three games." - Markell Johnson, BC Astana

FIBA