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*** IRAQI MEN BASKETBALL MAIN PAGE ***
 | Al Kahraba Electricity finishes the campaign in Group C | |
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by Eurobasket News - Apr 29, 2008 | |  | Al Manama became the last team to upset Al Kahraba Electricity in Group C of 21st Arab Clubs Championship. The team from Bahrain overcame the team from Iraq 99:68. Al Manama took a control of the game from the very beginning and dominated the court. Al Manama nailed 35 points in the last period but Al Kahraba Electricity kept the two digit number on the board. Albert Mouring (191-G-79, college: Connecticut) led the winners with 29 points. Faraj Abdulla (203-C/F-75) collected 20 points and 20 rebounds for the first win of Al Manama. Ahmad Monshed top-scored for Al Kahraba Electricity with 25 points, while Malek Falah nailed 15. |
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| Al Kahraba Electricity loses to Sporting Al Riyadi Beirut | |
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by Eurobasket News - Apr 27, 2008 | | | Al Kahraba Electricity lost its second game of 21st Arab Clubs Championship being defeated by Sporting Al Riyadi Beirut. The team from Lebanon won the encounter 106:88, mostly due to the opening of the game. Al Kahraba Electricity trailed 20:42 and could not come into the game. After 65:94 Al Kahraba Electricity could reduce the gap in th end of the game. Fadi El Khatib (197-F-79, agency: Pro Management Agency) led the winners with 33 points and 6 assists.Ahmad Ismail (201-F-76) collected 20 points, 11 rebounds, 8 assists and 7 steals, while Ace Custis (202-F-74, agency: Higher Vision Sports, college: Virginia Tech) had 16 points. Nedal Ghanem posted 21 points for Al Kahraba Electricity and Ahmad Hamzeh scored 18. |
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| Orthodox edges Al Kahraba Electricity | |
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by Eurobasket News - Apr 25, 2008 | | | Orthodox beat Al Kahraba Electricity from Iraq 92:81. The team from Jordan easily started the game taking 26:15 advantage. They increased to 57:30 at the half time and looked forward to finish the game. Al Kahraba Electricity had a very good last period to reduce only to 11 points. Rob Anderson (196-G/F-79, college: George Mason) led the winners with 33 points. Kelly Wise (208-F-80, college: Memphis) collected 19 points and 19 rebounds, while Kevin Jobity (207-F/C-74, agency: Pro Management Agency, college: Niagara) scored 17. Al Kahraba Electricity was paced by Malek Falah who posted 16 points. |
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| Iraq National Team get ready for Arabian championship | |
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| | | Iraq National Team get ready for Arabian championship in Egypt. As part of preparation they are working in Istanbul (Turkey) with head coach Fiket Canselen and assistant Atilla Abdulaziz. Basketball draw will be held on 17th October in Jordan.
Tournament will be held in Egypt 27th October - 7th November 2007. There will be 16/18 teams.
This is third week of camp here. Inside camp working 14 players. We are looking for well performance. Team is working hard. As part of camp we are passed few friendly games in Istanbul. Up to end of the camp we will work to build modern philosophy for basketball, says Iraqian National Stuff.
After this tournament we are going ahead as part of another high level competition. Iraqian National team will participate in Arabian Olimpic games. |
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| Kahraba finally chooses his imports for WABA | |
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| | | Al Kahraba Electricity club management completed signning with two imports to play with the team in WABA (West Asian championship for clubs) which will be from 1st until the 9th of april, The players are from the united states and they are Josh Cooperwood and Marcus White (203-F-83, agency: Showtime Sports, college: Purdue) who are playing in Antranik club in Lebanon nowadays.
Cooperwood is a point guard who played before in Israel (Seasons 2004-2005 & 2005-2006) and having a good season in lebanon now putting him on 5th place in League's leading scorers with 26.8 ppg, While Marcus White is a newly graduated center from Purdue University (NCAA), He's considered now as the 2nd best rebounder in Lebanese league with 14.2 rpg. |
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| Interview with Army Club coach Fikrat Toma | |
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Fikrat Toma , A guy who gave all his time to serve the Iraqi basketball for more than 20 years, He coached many clubs inside Iraq plus The Iraqi National team for several years, He is our guest today.
Coach Fikrat worked as assistant coach with Iraqi National team from 1982 till 2000, and then National Team coach from 2000 till 2004, and after that he bagan coaching Army Club from 2004 till now.
Q: How do you see the Iraqi Basketball nowadays?
Iraqi Basketball is suffering for long years due to the unlimited obsticales and it beared so much and the results for sure was bad, The baskebtall base in the country became so weak and also reflects on the current players' abilites due to their frequenlty absence from trainings and being out from interbational tournament for several years and the stoppage of the current iraqi league due to the financial problems in the country as whole, all that was bad for our basketball.
To see the results from the 90's till 2000, we see that the results are not stable but after that we took 3rd in the arab's nations tournament which was held in Egypt in 2002, But when you go to the 80's from last century you will see that our baskebtall were shining in all arab world and even asia.
We can be better by refreshing our national team with youth players to mix them with the experienced and that may make our baskebtall better.
Q: Is there resolutions to fix the weakness of the Iraqi Basketball?
I think the weakness which came after 2005 pushed the Iraqi federation to apply new system to develop our basketball by depending on youth players and new faces and let them play in the league and local competitions, This system's results are great till now and lets our base of basketball to grow more but the responsibilites here must be shared between clubs and the federation, The clubs also must be active to be part of basketball develpoment, Also the federation must afford to the clubs all the trainings facilities and equipments needed for that, Also there must be basketball courts in all the iraqi regions, This will let the players to practice more and will make the base bigger.
Q: Do you think that applying the proffesionalism now in clubs is important?
We need now more than before to apply the professionalism in clubs but in the right way, We need to make our league more stronger by bringging imports to play side by side with our players and that will give them more experience, As you see our neighbours in the region after they applied this system there and how they are now making a nice baskebtall.
We need players to be free for basketball only and this is the professionalism.
Q: What do you think about our players who are playing abroad? Did they help the iraqi baskebtall?
With all my respects to some of these players, But the rest became more stronger than before after playing in higher levels and thats what they need.
Q: Tell us about Army's club preperations for next season?
After the punishment of the iraqi federation to us after we did'nt play in last season's "Nukhba" Tournament, I began to build a new team with youth and small players, We still need some of time to be ready for our next season.
Interview was translated by Mohammed Malas |
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| New season to begin in July | |
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| | | Despite the current critical situation in Iraq, the 2006-07 basketball season is set to start early July 2006.
The titleholders of the last league were Dohuk of Iraq after winning in the final over Al Hillah.
The league will count 2 more clubs than last year raising the number to 14 teams. The two new teams are Al Kahraba and Sanharib.
1. Al Hilla
2. Al Jaysh (Army)
3. Al Karkh
4. Al Shurtah (Police)
5. Al Houdoud (Border)
6. Al Mousel (Mosul)
7. Dahouk
8. Al Tadamon
9. Al A'zamiyah
10. An Nasiriyah
11. Al Ittihad
12. Al Aramani (the Armenian club)
13. Al Kahraba (Electricity)
14. Sanharib
Last February this year, a group of FIBA officials met with the new Iraq Basketball Federation representatives in Damascus, Syria because the meeting was not able to take place at the federations' headquarters in Baghdad due to border crossing difficulties. At the meeting FIBA provided the Iraqi Basketball Federation with materials and expertise advice.
FIBA proudly acknowledges and supports the start of this new season as another step for basketball in Iraq to once again return to its previous high position in the basketball world of Asia in general and West Asia in particular.
In other occasion, Dohuk Basketball team is doing well in Arab clubs championship in its 19th eddition anmd suceeded to be 3rd till now in their group, The two team imports who will play only in the tournament Daniel Dajic and Mattias Johansson are helping them so much and the team hopes now to qualify as 3rd best team to the 2nd round, Today they will meet Arena of Jordan in their 3rd game in the tournament. |
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| Dohuk adds Swedish trio to the team roster for ACC | |
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| | | Dohuk basketball team signs with 3 swedish players to play with the team in ACC (Arab clubs championship) which will be held in Morocco from the 27th of April till the 7th of April under the host of ASS Sale Club.
One of the three swedish players is Iraqi origin who is Ali Ghanim (195-F-75) who plays in 08 club in the Swedish Basketligan,He won with his pre swedish club Akropol the league champion in 2003.
The other 2 swedish players will play as imports in the team and they are Daniel Dajic (190-G-77) & Mattias Johansson (211-C-81, college: Boise St.),Daniel who plays as a point guard or shooting guard played with the Swedish National Team & Won as most improved played in the Swedish League in 2003 and this season his team Sodertalje Kings (Basketligan,1T) reached the semi-finals of the league,While Mattias Johansson (211-C-81, college: Boise St.) who plays a center was a member in the Swedish NT squad in 2003,He also played with Benetton Treviso one of the most popular teams in Italy and Europe.
Dohuk played yesterday a friendly game in Amman,Jordan befre heading to Morocco against Arena who also will participate in ACC and won at them 90-80.
All the iraqis wish the best for D'Hook to represent Iraq in ACC in the best way.....Good Luck for them.... |
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| Early exit for Al Karkh from WASL games | |
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| | | Iraq's Al Karkh has lost all its games in the first ever season of West Asia Super League (WASL) and thus has made its early exit from the group whose games are played in Aleppo, Syria with Iran's Saba getting the top spot in this group after a deciding game against Lebanese Blue Stars 81-66. This follows Al Karkh's loss against local favorites Al Jalaa' Alepo 79-39.
Al Karkh had signed in two imports specially for the WASL league. They are the American Lorenzo Johnson and the Turkish Orhan Guler. The 6'10 American center / power forward Johnson (of Colorado State 1994-1998) had played in 2005-2006 in the Jordanian basketball league with Hussein Erbid team where he averaged 15.8 ppg, adding an impressive 13.7 rebounds per game, 2 assists and 2.2 steals per game. The second import of Al Karkh is the 6'5 guard Orhan Guler of Turkey.Guler was a member of the Turkish national basketball team 1998-2000 and for long years played in Darussafaka, and later Ulker and Galatasaray and last season in Turkish Division 2 Ziyaret Belediye.
Al Karkh held tough only one quarter against Syrian Al Jalaa' Aleppo 15-19 but somwhat gave in some ground in the second quarter 39-26 totally collapsing in the third quarter for a final 40 point win for Al Jalaa'. Syrian star Michel Maadanli was top scorer with 21 points and 3 assists, with Zaim Haddad adding 15. On the Iraqi side Lorenzo Johnson scored 18 with the Turkish Orhan Guler adding 15 points and 4 assists. Iraqi Ali Fleih scored 6 points.
The final game of Al Karkh in Aleppo was against Lebanon's Blue Stars team that Al Karkh lost 112-63. The dominance of the Blue Stars was clear from first quarter 34-15 and the half also with a double score 62-35. With the third quarter finishing 87-47, the game ended by the Lebanese 49 ahead. Bue Stars American import Cedric Henderson was all over the court with 56 points, exactly half of all points scored by the Blue Stars, with play maker Rony Fahed 16, Jean Abdel Nour 10, Jihad el Murr and Roy Semaha 9 each. Al Karkh's import player Lorenzo Johnson scored 17. Orhan Guler scored 8 points.Top Iraqi scorer for Al Karkh was Hameed Rodhi with 14 and Ammar Hashem and Ali Fleih added 8 points each. Ali Hamad al Douri was also notable with the follow-ups.
Al Karkh roster:
Hameed Rodhi, Ammar Hashem, Ali Fleih, Ali Hamad al Douri, Talal Nassif, Bilal Nassif, Yasser Akkash, Maytham Kebyan, Sjad Nseir, Mohammed Idriss, Lorenzo Johnson (USA), Orhan Guler (Turkey)
Final classification for the group:
1. Saba (Iran) 12 points
2. Al Jalaa' (Syria) 10 points
3. Blue Stars (Lebanon) 8 points
4. Fast Link (Jordan) 6 points
4. Al Karkh (Iraq) 4 points
The games of the other group start in Tehran on the 22nd, with 4 teams the Lebanese Al Hekmeh Sagesse, Al Riyadi Aramex of Jordan, Al Jeish Army (Syria) and the Iranian 2nd representative Sanam. Lebanese champions Al Riyadi Sporting withdrew after the West Asian Basketball Association (WABA) excluded Al Riyadi's Joseph Vogel from playing as a naturalized Lebanese. Vogel, a principal player of Al Riyadi is part of Lebanon's national basketball team. |
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IRAQ
BASKETBALL FEDERATION c/o Iraq National Olympic Committee P.O. Box 441,
Baghdad
President: Ahmed Al-Samerayi, Secretoray General: Fawzi Askar
Tel: 63 2 843 9838; Fax: 63 2 843 9839
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