LUANDA (Angola) - Egypt have been like a flamethrower in the group stage of the 2025 AfroBasket tournament. In their second tournament game, Senegal melted at the sight of the Pharaohs' fire.
The Egyptians blitzed the Lions of Teranga 91–77 in their Group D match. Mido Taha delivered a spectacular 22-point performance.
Equally impressive was his teammate, Ehab Amin, who achieved a double-double with 19 points and 11 rebounds.
Team captain Amr el Gendy came off the bench and scored 11 points as the Egyptians coasted to victory, improving their chances of advancing directly to the quarterfinals.
Brancou Badio (18 points), Ibrahima Faye (15 points and 10 rebounds), and Karim Mane (13 points) fought hard, but could not extinguish the Egyptian fire.
The first quarter was electric with Taha scoring nine points within seven minutes. The dynamic Egyptian point guard showed silky handles, dribbling past the Senegal defence, sweetly releasing under the rim for the reverse lay-up at the 7:17 mark. He also hit a three-pointer a few minutes (4:07) later to give Egypt the 13-11 lead.
While still in the game, Senegal was hit by the injury bug when key player Gora Camara, attempting to drive to the hoop, fell awkwardly after bumping into Anas Mahmoud and had to leave the game early with 6:51 minutes played.
The heated first quarter finished 20-18 in favour of Egypt, who stepped up their pressure on Senegal in the second quarter.
Amin showed good tenacity by flicking the ball away from an advancing Badio. The Egyptian's drive to the basket was illegally stopped by Badio, sending him to the charity stripe, where he calmly sank both free throws to extend the lead to 34-24 with 5:27 gone in the game.
Egypt remained in the ascendancy, but Senegal stepped up their urgency, and a five-point run with 1:18 to go saw them cut the lead to six with a single throw from Ibrahima Faye, a Moustapha Diop bucket, and a Jean Jacques Boissy buzzer beater saw the quarter end 42-36.
Senegal staged a mini fight back early in the third, back-to-back buckets by Badio, a jump shot and a three-pointer, cutting the lead to one point (44-43).
TURNING POINT: Egypt countered with an eight-point run, with Taha dropping two three-pointers and Amin dropping a bucket in between his teammates' sharp shooting, making it 52-43 to the Pharaohs.
HERO: Ibrahim Zahran, 2022 U18 AfroBasket with Egypt, was perfect from three-point (3/3) range. His teammates put him in a position to get clean looks from the arc, and he showed he can handle high-pressure moments.
STATS DON'T LIE: Egypt's 10/22 shooting from three put distance between themselves and Senegal. Egypt was aggressive throughout the game, forcing turnovers and scoring 20 from the possession they gained. In the paint, they scored 40, and the bench contributed 33 points to another famous victory over Senegal.
BOTTOM LINE: Egypt have a little bit of everything at this tournament. Shooters. Facilitators. Bigs who can crash boards and score. They look like that is ready to make waves in the tournament.
It was the clash of African giants - Senegal and Egypt - both five-time champions of the tournament. It was their eighth meeting, and before this group clash, Egypt led the head-to-head battle 4-3.
In the AfroBasket, Egypt and Senegal met five times (1999, 2007, twice in 2013, and 2017), with the Pharaohs winning three. The Egyptians made sure that victory at the tournament went to them.
WHAT THEY SAID: "I'm proud of what I did at the three-point line. My role in the team is not to shoot threes only, I have to play defence - stop guys like Boissy and Badio. I did that pretty well. We believe and want to make the semi-finals. We want to do something better than previous years," Egypt guard Ibrahim Zahran.
"We were not ready to play today. We were just did not show up. We have to play hard. We have game on Saturday (against Mali) and we have to come prepared," Senegal forward Ibrahima Faye.
FIBA