Reigning Fiba Africa Zone five champions Kenya Ports Authority (KPA), home girls Kampala City Ciouncil (KCC) , favourites APR and Eagle Wings all booked a semi finals ticket as the Zone Five club championships took shape in Kampala, Uganda.
KPA will take on compatriots Eagle Wings in an all Kenyan women's semis match while KCC take on favourites APR of Rwanda in the other semi finals on Saturday. These ties expected to be all fire takes place at the YMCA, Wandegeya courst from 4 pm local time.
The champions booked their slot in the last four with two wins and a loss to finish second behind favourites and unbeaten APR of Rwanda in pool B tie. KPA won their last fixtures against Berco Stars of Burundi with a runaway 80-41 scoreline.
Unbeaten Wings on the other hand flew past home girls KCC 70-54 in the other group A semis to set an exiting date with KPA in an eagerly game awaited by the Ugandans who are itching to know who the real Kenyan champions are.
Thomas Olumbo, the Wings tactician minced no words saying an new dawn has arrived with his girls are gouing flat out to dethrone KPA who have been tops of the region. This is Wimngs first outing at the regional level."We will win but not by a big margin." he guaranteed.
With players like national team vice captain, Caroline Achieng, Eunice Ouma, Rebecca Sarange, Anastasia Njeri, Bridgit Nanzala and the fast rising Janet Okoth, no one can doubt Wings capability of causing a major upset here.
But in KPA they face a huge obstacle. Anthony Ojukwu's charges, who lost hard 64-39 to APR have learn their mistakes and are coming all out. "We played like inexperinced players in that loss. We have adjusted and you will see a totally different approach". said Ojukwu.
In Millicent Anyango, Agnes Anyango, Yvonne Akinyi, Everlyn Akinyi, Joyce makungu and Irene Murambi, these KPA girls have dominated this event and it would be fool hardy to think that only loss will demoralise them.
The other semi finals will pit APR against KCC and Blandine NdayaAdebaye Honorare and Mohnro Laeotiota will be key. KCCC will bank on Becky Akulo, Mirriam Hamala and Flavia Oketch but it will be a tall order.
This tournament went into the record books as the one with the highest number of teams since Fiba Africa moved in to help with its organisation in 2005. It started in 1995 in Harare, Zimbabwe with a total of six teams and won by Posta (men) and KCB Lioness (women).
Co-operative Bank of Kenya broke open a closely fought encounter against JKT to become the first men's side to book a semi final slot .They beat the Tanzanians 51-45 in a tricky group A showdown at Makerere University courts.
The bankers, who are also perenial runners up in the Kenyan league nipped a harsd fighting JKT of tanzania 51-45 in this pool A tie topped by Warriors of Uganda who beat CSK of Rwanda 76-62. Here again looks a near certainly Kenyan face off involving.
It remained unclear from a tight pool B which teams will make it to the semis until the last games late last night. KPA, KCB Lions, Falcons and Marines of Rwanda are all in with a chance to make it to the medal brackets after having lost one game each going into the last ties.
Two sides, New Stars of Burundi who lost 85-86 to Falcons of Uganda are eliminated as are Tanzanans ABC who were felled 63-91 by Lions. There is still one games to play in this pool and organisers are ready for arithmetic if possible to know the top two sides.
Federation of Uganda Basketball (FUBA) President Ambrose Tashobya is exited about the performance of his teams, especially the men in the championships saying he want mors of this in future.
"I really did not expect them Power to be out of the event at the preliminary round stages because they did alot of training. Perhaps it was due to technical ." he observes.
He noted that the team, Uganda,s hopes might not have planned technically abd this could be the difference as far as he is concerned.
The level of the competition displayed here is very high indeed, he notes adding that he appreciates this and was all the same proud of his six teams. "As you can see the results are really close.
Other than the Tanzanian teams, the rest of the clubs in this event did so well.
But he is concerned about the his girls performance. KCC though managed to reached to the semi finals with KIU Rangers and A1 Challenge falling by the way side.
With the Lugogo Indoor Stadium undergouing a massive renovation, Tashobya said this venue will be available from next year and his ofdfice will ask Fiba to bringmore champioships here.
"Whether it is the Africa club championships or the nations cup, we will ask to have another one here and very soon. The gynamnasium will be good for basketball as you really cant expect to great basketball on out door courts."
he said.
This noted but the results suggests otherwise. It has been all fire and fury. High commedy and low drama in Kampala whether under the scorching sun or even playing without a game shot clock. It has never really mattered.
The circumstances not withstanding, look flah back to the following games. KCB v KPA, Warriors v Co-op and New Stars v Falcons. Highly charged and brilliantly contested games. If only the referees could put up with the pace !
Tashobya who leads the crowd in cheering every time the six Ugandan sides took to the court wants young girls to take up the sports in schools alot more seriously.
"it is that lack of experience is our main undoing. My did their best but they could not handle the pressure.It is experience that surely did let us down in that category. This is not good at high level competitions liken this."
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He says Uganda will invest in the technical arm of the game because this is where the teams failed the litmus test
"Generally I want to have as many coaching clinics as we can as our biggest problem is the technical arm. "We must train our coaches and that is the reality."
He says that he was glad that corporate was coming in sports to partner with Fuba. "We are accountanble and we expects them to come in big numbers once this event is over as other have shown interest to work with us.." he concludes.
The are Sprite, Broadband, KCB, Magic Fm, National Broadcasting, Sanyu radio and some other small ones who chipped in to make this show a success.. Kampala surely has seen alot more than they can bargain for !.
Dann O'Werre
FIBA Africa