UAE playing it fast and loose for Fiba Under 17 World Championships

The UAE Under 17 national basketball team is mirroring the senior side's fast-paced style to counter a major height disadvantage as the Fiba U17 World Championships approach.

UAE under 17 basketball player Rashid Mohammed shown during the Mena Basketball Showcase on Saturday. Photo Courtesy / Dubai Amateur Basketball Association / May 31, 2014

The record for hosts in the very young history of the Fiba Under 17 World Championships is a spotty one.

At the inaugural event, in 2010, Germany made it through the group stage – despite a remarkable 79-33 loss to Poland – only to lose in the knockout round quarter-finals by 12 to Lithuania. Then they lost to Serbia and then again to China in subsequent consolation matches to finish eighth. Two years later, the Lithuanians, now hosting, failed to advance out of the group round and finished ninth.

The bar then, at least, is set low for the UAE when they welcome some of the world’s best young basketball players to Dubai in August for the 2014 edition of the World Championships. And while basketball doesn’t enjoy the popularity or have the institutional support like say, football, here, there is actually some reason to think the Emiratis may be able to clear that bar.

The first reason for that is simply the new structure of the tournament. Regardless of group play results, all 16 teams enter into the knockout stage. Win the first-round knockout game, and the UAE will be in to the quarter-finals, guaranteeing they at least match Germany’s eighth in 2010.

The second reason is that their biggest drawback may give them the fuel to pull off a major upset.

The UAE U17 side, much like the men’s senior side, most glaringly lack height. At the weekend’s Mena Basketball Showcase in Dubai, where they played a team of high school expat all-stars, their tallest listed players were 6ft 1ins Abdullah Al Abdullah and Ahmed Al Nimani.

But also like the men's senior side, coach Zoran Zupcevic and his assistant Ayoub Abbas employ a frenetic, chaotic style that very well could disrupt a traditionally hyper-organised side like possible round-of-16 opponents China.

Over the weekend, they drew the expat all-stars into this kind of game and, facing a height disadvantage like they could expect to see against, say, Egypt or group opponents Italy at the World Championships, used it to score a 47-35 win.

It was fast, it was sloppy, you could even call it ugly at times and there were a lot of turnovers, but it also led to a lot of easy points around the basket that they would otherwise have no hope of scoring out of a traditional half-court set, when opposing big men have time to set themselves on defence.

It worked best when it flowed out from their top backcourt pairing, 5ft 6ins Mohammed Jumaa and 5ft 8ins Salem Suwais. The latter showed a fearlessness and willingness to attack the basket that is crucial for an undersized team to break height disadvantages and the former showed good ball-handling and distribution skills that help make an uptempo offence tick.

Al Abdullah, the MVP of the game against the expats, has good length and showed good basketball smarts in snaking around inside for rebound positioning and put-back attempts.

He’s also quick-footed and fluid (he actually threw in a euro-step on one drive) so when the guards pushed the pace the hardest, he was able to beat taller players back down the court and get into position inside well ahead of them.

The downside, of course, is that sometimes the full-court passes and breakout sprints downcourt led to sloppy changes of possession. That’s the risk you take when your goal is to be as disruptive as possible.

Zupcevic and Abbas also have the UAE boys playing very active, aggressive team defence. Since by the very nature of their lack of height, opponents will find a lot of high-percentage shot opportunities near the basket. Their best defensive strategy to that end, then, is to do as much as they can to prevent shots from happening in the first place.

The guards get in opponents’ faces and their forwards, like Al Abdullah and 6ft 0ins Rashid Mohammed, use their long arms to poke at passes and generate steals. Mohammed had five just on his own against the expats.

The overall result is a very high-risk, high-reward style of play, which could leave the UAE with a result that looks something like Germany’s 66-point loss from 2010. But if it works it could give them a signature victory from a tournament where expectations are low.

More often than not, at least in the showcase, it worked.

And if they can make it work again in a high-profile game at the World Championships, just maybe it’ll go a little ways to boost basketball’s popularity and institutional support in the Emirates. That would be a plenty fine victory for the hosts.

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