Basketball in Africa

By Charles Mutebi

MTN-FUBA Playoff Finals
Game 2, 5pm-10pm
Women
Canons v A1
Men
Power v Falcons
Division 2
Angels v Riders

HISTORY has been praised for having the ability to predict the future but as far as Game 2 of the men’s basketball playoff finals today is concerned, it is inconclusive.
This is because, depending on which chapter is selected, consulting the past on a Sadolin Power versus Mogas Falcons final would turn-up conflicting results.
On one hand, using the latest entry, which is Power’s 109-85 win over the Falcons last week makes Power strong favourites to win tonight’s encounter.

On the other hand, if one looks a little further back, the Falcons are still very much in contention, if not favourites. Just last year, the Falcons bounced back from two opening losses to win the finals against the Kyambogo Warriors.
In fact in 2002 the Falcons lost the first two games to Power in the finals but still won the championship.

So the records are treacherous at this point yet either team captain cannot look past Game 1 in their preparations for today’s reunion.
“We can do better than we did in Game 1,” said Power talisman and captain Isaac Afidra. “Offensively we were okay but we need to improve a little bit on our defence individually and as a team.”

On tonight’s game, he said:“We are taking it one game at a time. We are just coming out to play our game, without any pressure at all.”

His counterpart Eric Malinga was not very divergent in his views.
“In Game 1 we didn’t do enough to stop them from scoring,” he stated.
“We did not put the extra effort on defence and offensively, we failed to execute our patterns as well as we wanted.”
“We definitely have to do more tonight,” Malinga asserted, “It’s a final so we have no other choice because if we don’t we are going down the drain.”
* IT would have been hard to predict before the women’s playoffs final series begun that A1 Challenge would, at any one point, have anything to prove.

But after being embarrassed 50-24 by the Lady Canons in Game 1 last week, A1 find themselves on the brink of seeing their title ambitions going up in smoke in front of their eyes.
A1 players looked clueless, were wasteful and showed very little of their typical fighting spirit and the sense of disbelief was visible on their faces at the final whistle.

If the Canons win tonight, it might be hard for A1 to recover.
Canons star centre Lorraine Akinyi said they vowed to make the most of their maiden finals appearance.
“We said to ourselves that if we get into the playoffs that we can lose at the semi-finals but not in the finals. We are determined to fulfill that,” she said.