Recap
Final (1:00 PM-2:00 PM) Sunday, Feb 4, 2007
Qadr
Inshirah
  1 2 T
Qadr (5-3-0) 19 15 34
Inshirah (5-4-0) 19 23 42

Team concept a foreign language? Feb 8, 2007
by Teepu Khawja  

This game was my featured game of the week. Both teams are strong and physical, and it would be tough to predict how they would play each other as there only scheduled meeting of the regular season ended in a default win for Qadr. The first play of the game gave an idea of exactly how this game would be played out; Geoff Edwards drove strong to the basket and was fouled; on the subsequent free throws, he missed both. Qadr quickly realized that this would be the type of game that they thrived in; physical, half-court offense, and low scoring.

The game was back and forth the entire half as Qadr got even scoring from its team, while Inshirah continued to be aggressive and get to the line. The score was 15-15 with 6:20 left and the ended in a 19-19 tie. Qadr and Inshirah were both lead by 3 players each scoring 4 points. Of course, Inshirah could have had some more breathing space if they could hit their free throws; they were 2-8 while Qadr was 3-6.

The second half saw Qadr begin to separate and get some breathing room, but saw it collapse soon afterwards and they found themselves hanging onto a 27-25 lead in this tight game. Qadr managed to hold on to the slim lead until Inshirah managed to finally take it as they went up 36-34 on an uncontested lay-up by Kareem. It seemed that not only the offensive momentum had shifted in Inshirah's favor, but so had the mental edge. Cracks started exposing frustration in Qadr's cohesiveness with each other. On-court frustrations were translating into poor shot selection and poor distribution. All this combined to see Qadr go scoreless for the last 5:47 of the game and Inshirah end the game on a 8-0 run. The game ended with Inshirah winning 42-34, lead by Kareem's 14 pts while no Qadr player managed to score double digits. As stated earlier, this came was closer than it had to be; Inshirah's win could have been much more comfortable if they only hit free throws. Only Rihard and Geoff managed to shoot free throws this game, but between the two of them, they only managed to hit 3-19 from the "charity" stripe.