Rivers Hoopers end first round of the 2024 Sahara Conference undefeated

US Monastir ended the first round of the 2024 Sahara Conference without a single win after three games.

The cause behind the 2022 BAL champions’ poor performance, Monastir guard Oussama Marnaoui admitted was because of their opponents and his own team’s disparities. “It’s both, the opponents and us. We are not as good as we were in the BAL [in] season 2. Teams here keep getting better and better every year,” the 2022 BAL champion said.

The Tunisian champions stepped on floor facing a must-win task, but things went from bad to worse as the game progressed.

US Monastir head coach Mohamed Kirdani tried everything he possibly could, but nothing worked out in their favour.

George Williams replaced Chris Crawford in the starting line-up, but 3 minutes into the game and with the Hoopers leading 12-3, Kirdani was forced to call a timeout, which made little or no difference.

Crawford came on for Williams, but the Hoopers’ sense of urgency was too much to cope with.

Monastir led by 1 at the break (40-39) against APR and trailed by one (32-31) against AS Douanes, but this time around the Tunisian side trailed Rivers Hoopers by 20 (49-29) at the break.

And the last straw came when Will Perry buried a three-pointer with 3:45 minutes left in the fourth to extend the Hoopers’ lead to 77-56.

Kelvin Amayo terrorized US Monastir’s defense with his scoring prowess from almost every corner of the floor to finish with a game-high of 27 points.

Amayo’s 10-for-23 shooting included a 6-for-17 form behind arc.

Perry shot 4-for-7 from long-range to finish with 19 points, while Devine Eke and Peter Olisemeka contributed 16 and 13 points, respectively.

“When they make a lot of tough shots like that, contested or not,” Marnaoui reflected on the Hoopers’ 11-for-34 three-pointers, “there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“We were terrible defensively. In this type of game you have to start aggressively; we failed to stick to our game plan. Hopefully, we can bounce-back in the next three games,” Marnaoui pointed out.

Substitutes Sadio Doucoure and Chris Crawford, the only US Monastir to score in double digits, finished with 21 and 17 points, respectively.

With the win over US Monastir, Rivers Hoopers finished their first round of the 2024 Sahara Conference as the only team without a defeat.

Devine Eke said their third win in as many games was “a collective effort. We came here to succeed, we didn’t come here to participate,” he noted.

When asked about the key factor that saw Rivers Hoopers sink US Monastir , he said: “Boxing-out, rebounding and defending the pick-and-roll rightly. They are a good pick-and-roll team, that was our main goal defensively today.”

The game was dominated by Rivers Hoopers from the jump-ball to the final buzzer.

The second round of the Sahara Conference starts on Thursday – after a rest day on Wednesday – with Rivers Hoopers facing hosts AS Douanes while US Monastir will take on Rwanda’s APR.