CAIRO: Two seconds and a flick of the wrist was all Libya’s Raid Fareed needed to dash Egypt’s hope of advancing past the first round in the 2009 FIBA African basketball championship. Only moments before it had appeared the Egyptians had the momentum and had tied the game with overtime looming.
Fareed’s shot brought elation from the 3,200 in attendance in Benghazi and groans from fans across Egypt. Egypt lost this critical Aug. 10 game 75-73. Following their defeat at the hands of the Libyans Egypt played an uninspired final game against Cote d’Ivoire the next day losing 64-80.
The Egypt team kicked off its Afrobasket 2009 campaign on Aug. 5 with a successful thrashing of Mozambique, which gave no hint of the trouble to come over the next two days. It surprised few when Egypt fell to Angola (69-79), given that the Angolans are the defending champions of Africa. Egypt was later shocked by a surprising loss (47-67) to a far lower ranked Mali side. On Aug. 9, Egypt took a tough loss to traditional rival Nigeria losing 77-87. Despite these losses Egypt still had a slim chance of advancing before the Libya game.
Egypt won the FIBA Africa Cup of Nations five times, tying it with Senegal in the all-time standings. Angola won the tournament a record nine times, including the previous five editions. Egypt finished fourth in the previous FIBA Africa tournament held in 2007 and bronze in 2003.
Egypt had recently moved to 34th in FIBA rankings making it the fourth highest team ranked in Africa after Angola, Nigeria, and Algeria. Egypt’s ranking is now likely to fall given its disappointing performance in the Libya tournament.
The top three teams from the 2009 FIBA African Championship will qualify for the 2010 FIBA World Championship to be held in Turkey. Egypt has not appeared in the FIBA World Championship tournament since 1994.
