{"id":252692,"date":"2023-03-13T10:13:35","date_gmt":"2023-03-13T08:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bal.africa-newsroom.com\/press\/2023-basketball-africa-league-bal-season-game-3-us-monastir-tunisia-vs-stade-malien-mali?lang=en"},"modified":"2023-03-13T10:13:35","modified_gmt":"2023-03-13T08:13:35","slug":"2023-basketball-africa-league-bal-season-game-3-us-monastir-tunisia-vs-stade-malien-mali","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/2023-basketball-africa-league-bal-season-game-3-us-monastir-tunisia-vs-stade-malien-mali\/","title":{"rendered":"2023 Basketball Africa League (BAL) Season Game 3: US Monastir (Tunisia) vs. Stade Malien (Mali)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/210773ba62abd3f\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/210773ba62abd3f\" alt=\"Basketball Africa League (BAL)\" style=\"max-width:500px\" \/><\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/download\/210773ba62abd3f\">Download logo<\/a><br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/africarc\/loganalytics?press_id=244571&amp;press_source=Basketball Africa League (BAL)\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The 2022 BAL (<a href=\"https:\/\/theBAL.com\">https:\/\/theBAL.com<\/a>)&nbsp;Champion US Monastir of Tunisia started its title defense with a game against Stade Malien of Mali, which was making its BAL debut.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Stade Malien captain Souleymane Berthe scored two early baskets to give his team a 6-2 lead, but consecutive baskets by former Pac-10 Player of the Year and NBL MVP Jerome Randle and 2022 All-BAL First Team member Radhouane Slimane pushed US Monastir in front 11-10 with 3:30 left in the first quarter.&nbsp;After US Monastir&rsquo;s Firas Lahyani converted an and-one basket and a free throw, Lassaad Chouaya laced a three pointer at the end of the quarter to give US Monastir a 23-15 lead heading into the second.<\/p>\n<p>Stade Malien attacked the basket and offensive glass to start the second quarter, but US Monastir&rsquo;s balanced and efficient scoring maintained its double-digit lead for the better part of the quarter.&nbsp;A corner three by Ibrahima Thomas on a cross-court pass from Slimane gave US Monastir its biggest lead of the game, 41-28, with just over two minutes left in the half.&nbsp;Diarra scored six points during an 8-0 run for Stade Malien to cut the deficit to just four with :55 second left in the half. After getting fouled on a three-point attempt, Randle hit all three free throws to go into the half up 44-37.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Monastir started the third quarter with a 5-0 scoring run that extended its lead to 12.&nbsp;A 6-0 run ignited by a jump hook from John Wilkins brought Stade Malien to within four points with 3:52 left, but US Monastir closed the quarter strong, capped off by a Randle floater to go up 60-49 with one quarter remaining.<\/p>\n<p>Berthe caught fire in the fourth, scoring 10 points in the first five minutes of the final period, but Monastir&rsquo;s balanced offense, which featured seven different players score at least seven points, helped sustain the team&rsquo;s double-digit lead throughout the quarter.&nbsp;US Monastir closed the game with a 78-68 win.&nbsp;Berthe poured in 34 points, the most points scored by one player so far this season, while teammate Diarra recorded a 14-point, 14-rebound double-double.&nbsp;Randle led all Monastir scorers with 16, while Thomas and Oussama Marnaoui scored 11 and 12 points, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Stats for the game can be found here&nbsp;(<a href=\"https:\/\/apo-opa.info\/3FinIlu\">https:\/\/apo-opa.info\/3FinIlu<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>US Monastir will play its next game against the Kwara Falcons on Wednesday, March 15.&nbsp;Stade Malien will play the Falcons on Tuesday, March 14 at 4 p.m. GMT.<\/p>\n<p><i>Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Basketball Africa League (BAL).<\/i><\/p>\n<p><strong>Contact:<\/strong><br \/>\nEdwin Eselem<br \/>\nBasketball Africa League<br \/>\n+221 786154287<br \/>\n<a href=\"mailto:eeselem@thebal.com\">eeselem@thebal.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/\">Source: Africa Newsroom &#8211; APO<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Download logo The 2022 BAL (https:\/\/theBAL.com)&nbsp;Champion US Monastir of Tunisia started its title defense with a game against Stade Malien of Mali, which was making its BAL debut. Stade Malien captain Souleymane Berthe scored two early baskets to give his team a 6-2 lead, but consecutive baskets by former Pac-10 Player of the Year and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":252693,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[4585],"class_list":{"0":"post-252692","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa-news-2","8":"tag-apo","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/2023-basketball-africa-league-bal-season-game-3-us-monastir-tunisia-vs-stade-malien-mali.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}