BEIRUT (Lebanon) - Ittihad Club will look to remain unbeaten while three other teams hope to get another W as the Gulf League competitions of the 2025-26 FIBA West Asia Super League (WASL) continue this week.
The reigning Saudi Basketball League champions are shooting for a 3-0 record against Muharraq while Al Ula Club and Al Arabi SC will lock horns in a battle between sides keen on getting back on the winning track.
Week 5 of the Sub-Zone League opens Monday, with the Tigers flying to Bahrain to face the Red Wolves at the BBA Arena in a bid to extend easily their best start in the pan-regional meet owned and operated by FIBA.
Ittihad, for starters, aced their first two tests of the season, beginning with a vengeful 94-88 victory over defending WASL-Gulf titlists Shabab Al Ahli in Dubai in an early rematch of last season's Final.
They then followed it up with a 92-81 win over Kazma in Kuwait, and they surely want to finish their road trip on a high note before entering the second half of their Group A campaign - all at home in Jeddah.
But they will have to overcome, first and foremost, a team that's bent on barging into the win column after suffering back-to-back losses at the hands of Kazma and Shabab Al Ahli, respectively.
Those results have kept Muharraq as the lone winless team not just in the pool but for the entire WASL-Gulf League, thus the extreme eagerness on their part to change the narrative by trying to get on board.
And they're coming in with renewed confidence, by the way, having conquered the 2024-25 Super Cup at home just last week by beating the inaugural WASL champions and long-time rivals Manama in the finale.
Meanwhile, it's going to be a race between Al Ula and Al Arabi as to which team returns to its winning ways first as the two are coming off stinging losses after opening their respective campaigns with a bang.
The team from Saudi, for one, suffered a 113-108 defeat to former two-time WASL-Gulf League champions Kuwait Club in which their comeback bid led by Jonathan Gibson and Wael Arakji got foiled by Jamal Jones & Co.
It was in that game where forward Moh Hasan finally got his old form back, punching 17 points on a 5-of-10 clip from deep on top of 5 rebounds and 4 assists to show how much he's healed from last season's wrist injury.
The Red Devils, on the other hand, couldn't make it back-to-back wins after bowing to Sharjah SC by only two points, 91-89, enabling the reigning UAE League Basketball champions to chalk up their first-ever WASL win.
To know more about the 2025-26 FIBA WASL-Gulf League standings, click here.
FIBA