Basketball in Africa

The Kenya men’s basketball team on Tuesday landed a major shock losing 81-79 to the Somali national team at the ongoing Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. What was expected to be an easy Group B fixture turned out to be a bitter outing for the Kenyan team that won their first match 71-63 against Burundi on Monday.
Team Captain Ancetas Wafula had 11 points in the match while Co-op Bank’s Joseph Khaemba had 22 points for the Kenyans. The Somalian duo of Abdi Ahmed and Fisal Jama gave the Kenyans a hard time with Ahmed scoring 26 points, the highest in the match while Jama gave his side 20 points.
Somali dominated the 1^st quarter stunning Kenya with 19 points against 9 but Francis Ngujiri’s side managed to rally a comeback in the 2^nd quarter to take it 26-21 to put the half time scores at 40-35 in favor of Somali.
In the 3^rd quarter Kenya kept their foot on the pedal beating their opponents 28- 20 but slumped again in the last quarter managing only 16 points while the winners of the day had 21 points.
Somali will meet Burundi on Wednesday in the last group match that could determine who qualifies for the next stage.