Basketball in Africa

Defending champions United States International University- Africa, USIU-A, began their title defense in the men and ladies categories strongly winning the opening matches of the Zuku Universities Basketball League that kicked off over the weekend in Nairobi.
USIU Flames, the ladies side, were 84-30 winners over Dynamites from the University of Nairobi while their male counterparts, USIU Tigers, beat Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, MMUST, 81-54.
Captain Hilda Indasi led the Flames from the front scoring 22 points as Emma Nyakweba, signed from Co-op Bank, added 13. Marsha Owiti top scored for Dynamites with 9 points.
Flames led 28-20 at halftime setting a firm foundation for their victory. They won all the quarters 12-9, 16-11, 29-6 and 27-4.
MMUST suffered a major setback after going down to Tigers in the opening match which was billed as a battle of titans.
The Kakamega based side withdrew from the Kenya Basketball Federation league last month to concentrate on the universities league.
Tigers shine 
Tigers, fielding most of their newly signed players, overpowered MMUST in the first quarter to win 16-10 while the second settled at a 13-13 tie. USIU went to the breather enjoying a slender 29-23 lead.
The second half proved to be the hardest for MMUST as they lost by big scores. Tigers sealed their win with 22-13 and 30-18 wins in the third and fourth quarters respectively.
Jamal Mustafa and Denis Shamala had 18 and 12 points for Tigers while Alex Lugasi was MMUST top scorer with a game high of 33.
Basil Ogembo’s 17 points could not help the visiting Maseno University into victory as they succumbed to a 74-59 loss to Jomo Kenyatta University of Science and Technology, JKUAT.
The winners led 39-19 at halftime. Guyton Kijuba scored 16 points for JKUAT with Richard Adega adding 13.
The match was evenly contested as JKUAT won two quarters, one ended in a draw with Maseno carrying home one. The first two went to JKUAT 17-10 and 22-9 to cap their dominance in the first half.
The third quarter ended with a 17-17 stalemate before Maseno redeemed themselves with the fourth winning 23-18.