DAKAR (Senegal) - Egypt made a strong start to the second round of the African Qualifiers. What a win!
In fact, they gave Senegal, a team that entered the game on the back of a five-game winning streak, a lesson in how to beat them.
It was Egypt's desperation to stay in the running for qualification that hurt Senegal the most.
Although they trailed by four points at the end of the opening quarter, they regrouped in time to cause the biggest upset of the six games played in Dakar (Senegal) and Rades (Tunisia) on Thursday.
So, how did Egypt cancel out Senegal?
Firstly, despite their 3-3 record going into the second of the qualifiers, they never believed they were the underdogs.
Secondly, they contested every single Senegalese shot successfully, forcing them to finish with a 24-for-70 shooting percentage.
Thirdly, Egypt's big players out-rebounded the towering Senegalese team 53-45, including an impressive 23 offensive rebounds.
Most importantly, they took Brancou Badio out of his comfort zone, forcing him to miss all eleven of his three-point attempts, and he finished with nine points — his lowest haul since the start of the African qualifiers campaign.
But how could a team that turned the ball over eighteen times and only made six of their thirteen free throw attempts still come out on top?
"We knew that these are must-win games for us. We knew what the atmosphere was going to be like, so we decided we just needed to play together and take it as it comes," said Egypt guard Adam Moussa.
Moussa was perhaps the Senegalese player least expected to make an impact as a substitute, but that's exactly what he did.
He shot 6-for-15 from the floor to finish with 14 points off the bench.
The seven-foot duo of Anas Mahmoud and Omar Oraby combined for 20 of Egypt's 53 rebounds, while scoring 13 and 15 points respectively.
Egypt Coach Agusti Julbe complemented Moussa's reflection by saying: "We prepared some tactical plans that worked well, but without the hard work and dedication of our players, these ideas wouldn't have been successful."
This is the second time in the current campaign that Egypt has beaten a host team. They previously defeated Angola in the third window of the tournament last month.
Senegal dropped to 5–2 in Group F, while Egypt improved to 4–3.
FIBA