Sulaimon And Deng Highlight Midwest Bracket

By Parvez Fatteh, Founder of http://sportingummah.com, sports@muslimobserver.com

A big man and a guard highlight the Muslim contingent of the Midwest Regional of the 2013 NCAA Men’s basketball tournament this week. That big man is Louisville University center Gorgui Dieng, the number one seeded Cardinals’ 6’11” center from Senegal. And in the only Muslim-against-Muslim matchup in this entire region, Dieng and his Louisville Cardinals take on Ahmad Abdullah and 16th-seeded North Carolina A & T. Abdullah is a 6’0” freshman guard from Raleigh, North Carolina.
The premier Muslim guard in the Midwest Regional is Duke University freshman Rasheed Sulaimon. The 6’4” Houstonian has a chance at a possible Muslim-Muslim matchup in the second round of the tournament should Duke face the University of Cincinnati and their senior center Cheikh Mbodj. The 6’10” Mbodj is originally from Senegal. One of the more under-rated players in the country is Oregon University forward Arsalan Kazemi. The 6’7” senior is originally from Iran, and he also originally played for Rice University in Houston, Texas before transferring to Oregon last summer. Kazemi is averaging a solid 9.5 points per game and a robust 9.6 rebounds per game. Kazemi and the Oregon Ducks could potentially face Gorgui Dieng and the Louisville Cardinals in a Sweet 16 matchup./