TANZANIA'S JKT and ABC yesterday suffered their second straight losses in the Zone Five clubs basketball tournament at the YMCA Wandegeya courts in Kampala, Uganda.
The Tanzania Basketball Federation (TBF) Secretary General Lawrence Cheyo, who accompanied the teams in Kampala, said it was a disappointing start for the local clubs in recent years in the qualifying series of the Africa Championships.
Despite exhibiting an entertaining basketball, JKT who are the Mainland champions failed to prove their prowess outside the borders after falling 51-67 to Kyambogo Warriors.
Ugandan side owed in no small part to their Tanzanian point guard Abdullah Ramadan, who came in four minutes to help them wrestle back control of a match that was going in JKT's favour early in the first quarter. Ramadan went on to end the contest with a game-high 16 points.
Kyambogo skipper Brian Gumisiriza, who was an earlier injury doubt was in equally impressive form, picking up multiple boards on the way to sinking 12 points.
JKT's Gerald Balu dropped a team-high 12 points for the Tanzanian outfit, who have now lost both of their matches, following their 53-89 loss to Ugandan champions D'Mark Power on Monday night.
As if the loss on Monday evening was not serving as wake up call, yesterday ABC went down to 66-87 to Marine in another encounter at the same venue. They lost 70-102 to Kanya Ports Authority (KPA) in their opening match.