Students of Knowledge playing Basketball!?
... Yea! They have cell phones too!!!

There has been a tournament running the past week or so invloving the student dorms facing off in serch of a champion. The showdown involves none other than the students of the respective buildings in a tournament set up by the Deenship of Student Affairs, run by the Department of Dorm Management.

I went to a match last Tuesday night after visiting the Book Fair. The two teams playing each other? The Western Married Students Dorm (a building built for Western married students who have their families here under the University's sponsorship) playing against Building Two (a singles dorm building on campus). I have a few friends on either team and wasn't sure who to cheer on. The Married Building had two Americans (natural talent of course!), two British players, a Canadian and a Frenchy. As for the Single Building, they had score of talent, from America, Britain, Australia and a few other countries I'm not too sure about.

The Single Building guys seemed pretty hyped before the game
Possible reasons:

• Positive malnutrition (Lots of carbs from all the instant noodles, rice, potatoes...?)
• All the pent up energy?
• Maybe they wanted to show extra confidence to psyche the other team out?
• They were faking it (!?)
  

The "Married Guys" on the other hand seemed a lot calmer, they weren't as hyped up and rowdy as the "Single Guys" before the game.
Possible reasons:

• Maybe it's their diet?
• Or the fact that they don't have as much interest in the game?
• Or because most of their energy is used elsewhere than the basketball court?
• Or maybe they had a strategy and didn't want to accidentally reveal it?
• Or maybe that they were really focused on the upcoming battle?

The game started out in favor of the "Single Guys", they were scoring very often and their defense was pretty tight. A few of the "Single Guys" seemed to be jumping around like Daffy Duck (pented up energy?) while defending some of the "Married Guys". I think the referees showed a little preference for the Single Builing since they would rarely ever call the multiple travelling violations. They also turned many blind eyes to all the fouling and strange dribbling techniques (sometimes resembling double-dribble). On the other hand, the referees were quick to call "reaching fouls" on the "Married Guys" and even quicker to call an obscure three second violation where the offense is penalized for staying in the paint (free point box thingy) for more than three seconds, supposedly this rule is used by the NBA (who would've known). When I questioned the referee on any possible bias he was showing against the Married Building team, he denounced the thought with rather harsh language.

In the end the "Single Guys" one with more than double the score of the "Married Guys", but the "Married Guys" weren't knocked out the tournament yet. It seems they may have a match coming up this Monday against another singles dorm building. As for the "Single Guys" (Building Two), they'll be playing another singles dorm building, perhaps tonight, insha Allah.

I know one of the "Married Guys" has been checking out the blog the last few days, so perhaps he'd pleasure us with a comment below?
Also, I'd like to say that I took my mp3 recorder with me to record highlights of the game and to get a few comments from some of the players and spectators, but I doubt I will be publishing it online, unless I get a number of requests requesting otherwise (it's LONG and BORING).

Another little note, even though I called them the "Single Guys", they're really mostly "Married Guys" that live in the singles dorms since their families are back in their respective country. So they are single, but not single... ya dig? And while we are ont he topic of being yet not being, it seems that there might have been some violations of the rules from one or more of the "Single Guys", who don't actually live in Building Two, but rather, live outside the University campus in private buildings, or live in buildings other than Building Two... but I'm not pointing any fingers, so don't blame me!