Basketball in Africa

By PHILIP ONYANGO Posted Thursday, November 27 2008 at 19:47

Kenya Ports Authority were eliminated at the quarter-final stage of the Africa club championships last night when they went down to Nigeria’s First Bank 51-44 at the Nyayo National Stadium in Nairobi.

The top scorers for the Nigerians were Joyce Ekwaramodu (15 points) and Chuoni Udeaja (12 points) while the portswomen’s leading scorers were Caroline Arato (15), Agnes Anyango and Yvonne Akinyi (eight points each).
Strangely enough, Nigeria coach, Ejeremi Adewime, opted to rest Udoka Mfom, who has been the team’s mainstay.
Earlier, Eagles Wings defeated Victoria Club from Congo 49-37 to register their first win at the tournament.

In the classification matches, which are being used to determine the teams that will finish in position 9 to 12, group A teams proved more superior than group B teams when Radi from DR Congo, which was in group A, punished Uganda’s KCC 93-60.
Eagle Wings, who finished last in Group A, literally toyed with the Congolese who finished fifth in group B and could have won by an even bigger margin if star players Caroline Majeng, Eunice Ouma and Rebbeca Serange had clicked in this match.
Majeng, who has been Eagle Wings’ mainstay, was particularly off-colour and so was Ouma who has had a very a bad tournament. Kenya Ports Authority, the other Kenya team had beaten Victoria club 57-49 enroute to the quarter-finals.
Other group B teams were Desportivo who finished a first, CSA from Cote d’ Ivoire who finished second, KPA from Kenya who were third and APR Rwanda who finished fourth.

Group A had Primero de Agosto finishing first, First Bank from Nigeria were second, ABC from Cote d’ Ivoire were third while Djoliba from Mali finished fourth.

After taking a 13-12 first quarter lead, Wings, who played an easy game, continued to torment their opponents and were 27-24 up at the break.
They took the third quarter 10-06 to build the lead to 37-30 and were up 12-07 in the fourth quarter for the comfortable win which now guarantees them at least a position nine or 10 finish.
Bridgit Nanzala was the highest scorer for wings with 12 points while Anastacia Njeri scored 10, among them two three point shots.
Other scorers for Wings were Linda Nyikuli five, Rebecca Serange, Judy Juma and Violet Wanyama on four points each.

Game-high score

Tshinyanga Kalanda scored a game high 18 points to lead the scorechart for Victoria clubs while other scorer were Baketukila Nayindu (nine points) and Mikeno Ngono (five).
Against KCC, Radi were lifted by Kalundu Mussau who had a game high 30 points while Nyoka Mukoso and Nyota Mugenea contributed 19 and 14 points respectively.

Meanwhile, Angola’s Primero de Agosto increased their chances of reclaiming the Africa title when they hammered APR from Rwanda 81-54 in an entertaining quarter-final match at the Nyayo venue on Thursday.
De Agosto, who finished second to Deportivo when the championships were held in Mozambique last year, took the game to the Rwandese from the start and were leading 30-15 in the first quarter.