Basketball in Africa

By PHILIP ONYANGO Posted Tuesday, November 17 2009 at 18:36

Kenya Ports Authority’s women’s basketball team lost 47-54 to Abidjan Basketball Club (ABC) of Cote d’Ivoire in their second Group B match of the 15th Fiba Africa Champions Cup for women in Benin on Monday.

The Kenyans, who had earlier beaten the inexperienced Energie from Benin 70-32 in the opening match, completely failed to contain the more youthful and faster Ivorians who dominated the entire game leading in all quarters.

The win assured ABC of a place in the quarter-finals of the championship, which has attracted 10 teams after the Democratic Republic of Congo teams failed to show up.

Successful return

Against Energie, KPA led 24-09, 17-12, 17-05, 12-06 in this game in which their opponents had very little to offer. Elsewhere, Alexandra Sporting Club of Egypt made a successful return to African basketball with a half a basket win over defending champions Desportivo of Maputo, Mozambique.

Appearing for the first time after nearly 20 years away from African competition, Alexandra Sporting Club created an upset with a 72-71 points win over the champions. The Egyptians, who entered the court as under-dogs in this opening Group B game, took the first quarter 15-12 but the champions fought back in the second to take it 20-14.

Deserved victory

But a more determined Sporting Club came back strongly into the game in the third quarter with a 19-15 win and never gave up. Sporting’s Lewa Maihlewa led the floor with a double figure of 25 points and 13 rebounds while Heshan Hagar added 12 points and five rebounds to give their side a well deserved victory. In other matches, Club Sportif d’Abidjan of Cote d’Ivoire lost 45-38 to Interclube of Angola.

The Ivorian league champion trailed the Angolans in the first and second quarter by 13-5 and 11-8 points respectively for a half-time score of 24-13. Club Sportif d’Abidjan came into the third quarter strongly playing a more co-ordinated game, which paid off with a 16-12 points win.

Interclube grabbed 42 rebounds, 25 of them from the defence as against Club Sportif d’Abidjan’s 36 while the Ivorian side turned the ball over 32 times against Interclube 29. It was, however, a baptism by fire for latest entrant to the biggest women’s club competition in Africa, Nigeria’s First Deepwater Basketball Club, who lost their Group B opening game to Angola’s Interclube 83-58.