FUS Rabat made their intentions for the BAL clear by defeating the reigning champions Al Ahly SC 89-78 on Friday night.
The winners of the 2024 Kalahari Conference became the second team this season, after City Oilers, to beat the 2023 BAL champions.
In 2023, Aliou Diarra, the Defensive Player of the Year for BAL, scored 21 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, marking his third double-double of the season. His performance helped the Moroccan champions secure a spot in the Quarter-Finals where they will face the Cape Town Tigers.
Mark Lyons led Al Ahly SC with 20 points, followed by Patrick Gardner with 12 points, and Tony Mitchell Jr and Ehab Amin, who each contributed 11 points in the game.
After securing an 11-point win, Rabat had to devise a detailed plan to thwart one of the top contenders for this season's title.
Al Ahly SC Head Coach Agusti Bosch discovered in Gardner what his team was missing in the first quarter when they were behind 22-19.
The left-handed forward, coming off the bench, made 5 out of 7 shots in the second quarter, helping the reigning champions make a comeback.
Gardner finished the first half as the leading scorer for Al Ahly SC with 12 points, but he didn't score again in the second half.
Rabat was behind 49-41 at halftime after allowing 7 three-pointers in the first half.
Coach Said El Bouzidi had to find a way to stop Gardner's scoring and, more importantly, they needed to limit Al Ahly SC's three-point shooting.
Rabat's aggressive defense caused Al Ahly SC to only make 2 out of 17 three-point attempts in the second half. However, it was FUS Rabat's 10-0 run at the beginning of the fourth quarter that shifted the momentum of the game.
Yacine Baeri and Jonathan each made a crucial three-pointer, giving FUS Rabat the lead in the second half, and they maintained their lead for the rest of the game.
FUS Rabat small forward Ayoub Nouhi, who scored 7 points, encouraged his teammates to stay grounded.
“We haven’t achieved any yet,” he said.
“It’s a great feeling to beat the defending champions but this is not the final. We are going to celebrate for a little while but we need to get ready for the game on Sunday.”
Reflecting on Baeri’s impact, Nouhi noted: “That’s why we bring those guys in. Yacine didn’t play much in the first half and he came up big in the fourth quarter. That’s one of the strengths of our team.”
Gardner, meanwhile, acknowledged that they need to do better: “We got to play forty minutes, but we are going to bounce back as a team, and we are still in it.”
“Sometimes I am up, sometimes I am down, but I just gotta stay consistent, even in the second half to impact the game, if I am not scoring. I got to rebound better and be a better teammate in the second half.”
Gardner said that the message in the locker room was to “Just stay together. The goal is still the same. At the end of the day the championship can still be ours.”
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