Sunday at YMCA
Power v Warriors (8pm)
Women
UCU v A1 Challenge (6pm)
(Power, UCU lead series 2-0)
The rest of the MTN-Fuba League best-of-seven finals will be played at basketball’s eternal home YMCA court, Wandegeya following the unavailability of Lugogo Indoor Stadium.
Almost as expected, YMCA came to the rescue of the Federation of Uganda Basketball Associations (Fuba) after the Lugogo surface was declared unplayable on Tuesday night.
Though recently reopened after two years of renovation courtesy of MTN at a reported cost of Sh1.5bn, the surface in Lugogo is abysmal.
This prompted the closure for more repairs throwing the finals into disarray.
“We had a meeting with YMCA on Wednesday night and were granted the venue from Sunday onwards,” Fuba assistant general secretary Sande Manano said yesterday. “Our task now is to improve the lighting at YMCA over the next days,” he added.
DMark Power and Kyambogo Warriors are the teams contesting the men’s title whereas UCU Lady Canons are locked in a duel with A1 Challenge for the women’s crown. Power and UCU lead the series 2-0.
Game three which was due on Wednesday and game four earlier scheduled for today have now been pushed to Sunday and Wednesday respectively. Nonetheless, questions still linger in the public about the state of Lugogo. With the exception of the roof and lavatories, there is hardly any noticeable improvement on the hoops, stands and the new surface makes it impossible to dribble the ball.
President Yoweri Museveni officiated at the opening ceremony of the venue last month. Now reports indicate that it will undergo repairs from next week following a meeting between the contractor (Kalin Construction Company), MTN and NCS.
During the face-off, officials from Kalin reportedly refused to take the blame for bad surface citing that the venue had not yet been officially handed over to NCS.