Super Sammy powers Gharafa to Emir Cup win

Sammy Monroe produced one of the most dominant individual performances in the history of Qatar basketball to power Al Gharafa to victory in the Emir Cup final yesterday.
In a highly entertaining match, it was the American pro who stood out, his 41 points proving vital in Al Gharafa’s eventually comfortable 92-82 win over El Jaish at the Al Gharafa Sports Club.
Al Gharafa thus closed the season with two prestigious Cup titles, but missed out on a clean sweep having lost the Qatar Men’s League to El Jaish in a riveting contest that was decided on the last day of the tournament.
Monroe had been somewhat lacklustre building up to the final, but yesterday he gave Al Gharafa coach Koussay Hatem no reason to complain by living up to his full potential when it came to the crunch.
“As I said before we concentrated on boosting our defence and that was a key element in our victory today,” Hatem said after the match.
“Sammy is our star player and he has the habit of delivering on the big occasions. Yesterday, he scored almost half the points for his team and showed his true worth,” added the Iraqi tactician.
Michael Taylor added 19, while Hassino Ndoye and Salem Abdulla chipped in with 12 and 10, respectively, for the winners.
El Jaish were aiming for their third successive Emir Cup triumph but although they made a brisk start and led 23-19 after the first quarter and just about kept themselves marginally ahead at 44-43 after the second.
But it was here that Al Gharafa pulled up their socks and slowly began to dictate terms. Restricting El Jaish’s push for dominance but cutting off several of their moves, they inched ahead slowly and had established a slender four-point advantage (65-61) with only the final 10 minutes remaining.
Yet, El Jaish were hot on their heels and racked up 16 points over the next five minutes to edge ahead 77-75 after Al Gharafa could only manage 10 in the same period.
That left the fate of the match hanging on the final five minutes of play with the possibility of a heart-stopping finish looming.
But strange as it may seem El Jaish simply lost their scoring touch they had produced over the previous five minutes and managed to score only five points in the next five.
Several unnecessary fouls also compounded the problem for them as Al Gharafa boosted their score from the resultant three-throws.
El Jaish were stuck on what would be their final score of 82 for two minutes and 54 seconds, during which Al Gharafa scored 10 points in succession to close out the match. Incidentally, the winning margin of 10 points was the highest lead they enjoyed in the match that saw the lead change 10 times.
Monroe racked up a 66.67 percent success rate from field goals attempted and scored five three-pointers after being on the court for the entire duration of the match.
For El Jaish, James Davon top-scored with 34 points, while Hani Abilmona had 17 and Saeed Erfan Ali 12.
The next season will begin with the Qatar Men’s League in November.