Basketball in Africa

KAMPALA

The conclusion of the Fuba League season this week delivered many first titles for several players within Warriors and KCCA Leopards.

Warriors’ guards Ivan Enabu and Cyrus Kiviri and centre Michael Kariuki got their first rings. It has taken Enabu and Kariuki almost a decade to get this feeling. For Kiviri, this was only his first season in a side that can contend for the championship having joined from Ndejje University Angels this year.

“I am speechless. I thank God so much. I am very happy,” Enabu said. Similarly, forward Josephine Namayega and centre Martha Soigi also won for the first time as KCCA edged UCU Lady Canons 57-52 for a 4-3 series victory in the women’s final.

To Warriors’ Norman Blick and Flavia Oketcho (KCCA), who were named Most Valuable Player (MVP) for the respective division, the feeling has become routine.

The 4-2 series win over Falcons to which Blick contributed 97 points, the highest tally, is his fifth title having won with Sky Jammers (2001), Nkumba Marines (2005 and 2006) and DMark Power (2010). He was just helping an old friend. “I came here to help Ivan (Enabu) win,” Blick has said on several occasions this season. This was also his third postseason MVP crown.

Point guard Oketcho, part of the pioneer UCU team that won the 2008 title, is also on five ‘rings’ and counting. As a youngster, she also won three with Lady Bucks and then another at KCCA in 2009.