Basketball in Africa

By Robin Toskin in Algeria

National women basketball team stormed into the quarterfinals of the All Africa Games after convincingly beating Zimbabwe 81-68.

The victory on Saturday, was Kenya’s third straight win following the 58-56 triumph on the opening day against favourites Tunisia and 56-52 win over Mali on Friday.

Kenya led the Zimbabweans in all the quarters 27-13, 41-31 and 67-45 with coach Ronnie Owino making several substitutions to give other players a chance to play at the games.

Owino said: "The win gives us confidence to face Nigeria on Monday (tomorrow). We played better technically than in the first two matches. The substitutions I made slightly slowed us especially in the second quarter. But even then I think the players did their best to win the tie," Owino said.

By our time of going to press Senegal and Nigeria were playing with the two fancied to join Kenya in the quarters. Both sides are tipped to qualify from Group B alongside Kenya.

Coach Owino said although Nigeria are the champions, the fact that they beat Tunisia by a two point margin like Kenya offers hope the West Africans are beatable. "We face Nigeria on Monday. I am encouraged that the Nigerians also beat Tunisia by two points. We shall go into that with confidence," Owino said.

"After watching the Nigerians I think we stand a chance against them. Their team is composed of ageing players which if we exploit we can beat them on Monday," he said.

Kenya play their last preliminary match against Senegal on Tuesday.

Gladys’ Wanyama was in top form yesterday as she topped Kenya’s scorers’ charts with 18 points. Josephine Ochieng scored 13, Rose Ouma (14), Eunice Ouma (10).