Qatar survive double OT thriller, KSA breeze past Oman

SHARJAH (15^th GCC Basketball Championship) - Qatar survived a double over-time thriller to beat Bahrain 82-79 on Wednesday in the 15^th GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) Basketball Championship played in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.

The defending Champions, who will represent the Gulf region at the FIBA Asia Challenge next week, beat hosts UAE on Monday and had to beat Bahrain who already had two wins.

A win for the Bahraini’s on Wednesday would’ve edged them closer to winning this Gulf Championship, a qualifier to the 2017 FIBA Asia Cup, but the defeat now means that Qatar are the favorites while they’ll have to settle for second place.

Qatar enjoyed a bright start to game and by the end of the 1^st quarter they already had a +7 (21-14) lead over their opponents. The Al Annabi continued their dominance in the second quarter to go to half-time with a 37-28 lead.

It was a much different Bahrain after the restart; coach Salman Ramadan’s wards gave the Qatari players a hard time as they crawled back to send the game into an overtime.

In overtime, Bahrain were leading 68-65 with few seconds left on the clock, but Qatar’s Ali Erfan Saeed sunk a clutch three-pointer to send the game into a second overtime.

The close battle between the two teams continued in the second overtime but Qatar did enough to narrowly beat the resilient Bahrainis.                                                                                                        

In the other game, Saudi Arabia improved their record to 2-1 in the Championship with an easy 84-56 win over winless Oman.

 15^th GCC Basketball Championship Standing 

FIBA