Basketball in Africa

KCB Lions, the reigning East and Central Africa club champions recovered to beat International Christian Center (ICC) 98-74 in a Premier League tie at Nyayo National Stadium basketball gymnasium.
In their opening tie of the season, Lions struggled and fell 66-73 to rivals former four time national champions Co-operative Bank of Kenya (Co-op Bank).
As in the previous tie, it was Abel Nson's three point opener that set Lions away to a 24-14 first quarter margin and left ICC struggling the rest of the way.
In the second quarter, the 7 foot David Nyarsuok hit a stunning two handed slam dunk that ignited the sparse crowd. His huge basket made it 60-42 in Lions favour.
At the start of the last quarter, KCB had easily rolled away 76-53 leaving ICC, who had Steve Kuta, Nelson Njau and Vito Kote struggling for grip.
Lions played a much better game than last week with Patrick Kirui leading the charge with 26 points, Nson managed 20 while the 20 year old Nyarsuok chipped in with another 15 points.
Ken Maru scored 13 points while Ken Githinji hit similar number including the game clinching foul shot as Strathmore University nipped Java Warriors 57-56
It was Java's second succesive loss in the league following a 34-61 drubbing they suffered away in Kisumu. They had Eric Omondi and Peter Adede sinking 13 points each.
In the ladies tie of the day, Yana Milele made it two wins in as many matches when they hit University of Nairobi "Dynamites" 56-22.
Judith Akoth sunk 23 points while Sylvia Koech added 10 for Yana had won 64-32 against Catholic Dream Team last week. For the losers Irene Atieno made eight.

Dann O'Were