By Umar Abdul Salam

JEDDAH — Week four of the Saudi Basketball Federation League finished with Ittihad first and Ohud second, both with 4 wins.

Hilal stays third with three wins and one loss, Nassr fourth, Ahli fifth, Ansar sixth and Fateh seventh. Nassr, Ahli, Ansar, and Fateh each won two and lost two. Al-Safa is eighth with one win and three losses. Wehdah is ninth and Khualdiah 10th with four losses each.

Ittihad faced Hilal Thursday in Riyadh and escaped with a win. The game went up and down mostly in Hilal’s favor. Ittihad pushed back hard at the end of third quarter and came away with 71-68 victory. Ittihad’s main scorers were, Jordan Williams (19) and Randy Reed (22). Hilal had 6 main scorers with only one with 17 and the rest were under 11.

Ohud over-powered Nassr with some good inside play and won 80-60. Ohud’s Mohammed Enani Moraco scored 18, Abdulaziz Alawi 17, Fredy Nickolas and Ayoub Alsari 10 each. For Nassr, Hamid Al-Sharrif made 18 and Jerermy 14.

Fateh beat Al-Safa 107-98. Fateh’s imports Donnel Davidson scored 31, and Damilo Mitrovit 18 to support Mohammed Al-Saggaf (36) and Ahmed Kurdi (16) for a victory. Al-Safa’s imports Andrew had 30, and Shane Haywood 27. Ali Nassr hit six three-point shots and Salman Naif contributed 8 points and 10 rebounds.

Ahli beat Khualdiah 99-65. Ahli’s Emanuel Jones had 33 points, Taylor Brown 20 and Mazook Mouled 17. Khualdiah’s Ulysses Thomas hit 27, Abbas Ahmed 12 and Ahmed Wasi 11.

Ansar battled Wehdah winning at 75-68. Ansar’s high scorers were Mustalafa Alsari (18), Mustafa Jabba (13) and Ayman Al-Baik 11.

Wehdah playing without any import players is getting good scoring from their national player Hesam Bogaidi (26 points 11 rebounds and 3 steals and 4 assists).

The league needs to keep statistics on all games to note players blocking shots, getting assists and rebounds. Having players like Hesam doing all of the other things and scoring can lead Saudi Arabia to qualify for the next Olympics. Eng. Abdul Bady Lary has been pushing the importance of keeping statistics for over a decade. I remember the statistic teams that he set up for the Arab Championship, the Islamic Games and the Gulf Championship over the last 15 years. The basketball federation needs to know what their players are doing and what areas they need to improve in.