EGY - Egypt's Assem Marei to stand out along AfroBasket's best

CAIRO (AfroBasket/FIBA Basketball World Cup) - This is the year for Egypt's Assem Marei to show his potential at senior level.

At least, this is the opinion of Amr Aboul-Kheir, the head coach of Egypt's men national team.

It has been four years since Marei helped Egypt win Africa U18 Championship before he went on to display his talent at the 2011 U19 FIBA World Championship held in Latvia.

From the 20 to 31 August, the 2.06 forward and his Egyptian young teammates will take on Africa big teams in the 2013 AfroBasket in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire.

With a team that averages 24 years of age, coach Aboul-Kheir insists Marei will make a big impact.

"Assem improved his game in the past few years. He is physically strong and I hope to see him playing at his best against some Africa's best players," he told FIBA.com.

At 21 years of age, Marei is a junior at the Minnesota State University.

Last season, he started all 33 games, he led the Mavericks in rebounds with 7.3 boards per games and registered seven double doubles, including a streak of three straight games.

Two years ago at the U19 World championship, Marei ranked second in rebounding behind tournament MVP and top-scorer Lithuanian Jonas Valanciunas.

Despite a tremendous contribution in that tournament, Marei's playing time dropped from 31 to 9 minutes per game when he was called up to represent Egypt men's national team at the 2011 AfroBasket in Madagascar.

Now, it is his turn, although Egypt will show up in Abidjan with a "new team" according to the team's head coach.

There is a significant number of Egyptian players in USA Colleges, but when they take on hosts Cote d'Ivoire, Algeria and Senegal in Group A of this summer's AfroBasket, Marei will be the only USA-based player on the national team roster.

Since Egypt started their preparations in early June, they participated at the Mediterranean Games, they played in the William Jones Cup and played warm up games in Qatar.

But when asked about the team's aspirations for the tournament, Aboul-Kheir says a lot of changes happened in the past few weeks that might be felt on his team's performance.

He insists they will compete, but his preparations programme has been seriously affected by the political turmoil in the country.

"Up until 22 July our preparation was running well," the former Seoul Olympian said.

"Since the political situation deteriorated in the country we stopped playing friendly games.

"My players are determined to participate in the AfroBasket, any way.

"It is going to be a big challenge to compete with such a young team, but this is a process to become stronger and better in 2015," he acknowledged.

Both teams will travel to the Afrobasket looking to make it to the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup.

Egypt squad for AfroBasket: Wael Badr, Mouhanad El Sabagh, Ibrahim Aboukhadra, Ibrahim Gamal, Sherif Genedi, Wael Shousha, Mouhamad El Laithy, Rami Ibrahim, Haytham Kamal, Assem Marei, Ahmad Soudanu and Anas Mouhamad

FIBA