UGANDA : Basketball playoffs - Resilient UCU Canons on a roll

Written by John Vianney Nsimbe
Wednesday, 03 November 2010 18:48
Last weekend, when UCU Canons followed up their regular season wins over Kyambogo Warriors with a 64-61 win in game one of the best-of-five semifinal playoff series, journalists were quick to sound the alarm bell for Warriors coach, Gad Eteu.

Does UCU have Warriors’ number, the journalists wondered? There is still a lot of basketball left to play. It’s just game one, was Eteu’s response. It sounded quite familiar.

It was after just last season that Falcons’ coach Michael Mureithi said pretty much the same after his side had lost game one of the semifinal playoff series to Warriors.

Mureithi was confident that his cast of Stephen Omony, Eric Malinga, Sam Obol and Henry Malinga would put Warriors’ perennial chokers, Stephen Okias, Ronnie Kasewu and Brian Gumisiriza, in their place.

Little did he realise how the arrival of Martin Okwako and Abdullahi Ramadhan from Kenya and Tanzania respectively had strengthened Warriors. This strength told when Warriors valiantly won the decisive game five after Falcons had fought back from two games down to level the series.

No doubt, the Malinga brothers at Warriors now, Michael Kariuki, Okias, Kasewu, Abdullahi and Okwako have class and pedigree but it didn’t show in game one. Kasewu played 32 of the 40 minutes but the 2009 playoff MVP only managed a paltry 2 points and 7 assists.

Abdullahi fared no better as a return of four points and five assists in 21 minutes of action shows. Only Eric Malinga managed to get out of gear one with a return of 14 points in the 22 minutes he was on court. Eric was ably assisted by Okias who scored 13 points.

Why Eteu decided to bench the two who have been his form players is quite perplexing. Warriors faithful will derive some satisfaction in the fact that Henry Malinga is regaining his old touch after struggling in the regular season with a niggling knee injury.

Henry scored a commendable nine points in 17 minutes of play. His physical presence is what Warriors need. He destroyed UCU in game two and three of 2007 season as Falcons raced to their sixth title.

Miracle player, Brian Sentongo – a former teammate of Henry’s – believes “if UCU’s big men don’t step up in defence, [Henry] will kill them.” But Francis Kasekende, another Miracle player, notes that his former Warriors team-mates must slow down UCU’s running guards.

Ivan Enabu was electric in transition, scoring 17 points. In 2007, all Falcons did was to double-team Ivan. This time though, this may not work because Ivan’s speedy sibling, Jimmy Enabu, scorer of 11 points, complements him well.

Zonal marking and not man-marking full court could work for Warriors especially in this case where UCU has better and pacy ball-handlers including Adam Njoroge and Jeff Omondi.

That said, UCU’s five big men only scored 21 points amongst themselves compared to Warriors’ 40 points from the big men. This may spell doom. But Omondi says, “Everyone has a role. The big defended well while the small men scored.”