Basketball in Africa

Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) has one foot into the Kenya Basketball Federation men premier league playoffs final after winning the first two semifinal games against champions Co-operative Bank.
The dockers won game one 59-55 on Saturday at the Makande gymnasium in a close-call tie. In the second game on Sunday, it was a hard one as they staged a late comeback to win 66-62. They trailed Co-op Bank up to the fourth quarter when the bankers cracked.
Co-op Bank led 32-30 at halftime and doubled the advantage to four points at the close of third quarter winning 16-14. KPA came out fighting in the fourth quarter for a 22-14 win.
The dockers now need a win in the third game on Saturday in Nairobi to qualify while Co-op Bank must win the remaining three games to sail to the finals.
At the Nyayo National Stadium gymnasium, Ulinzi Warriors shook off a poor start to beat United States International University- Africa (USIU-A) 70-58 in game one.
With the absence of point guards Eric Mutoro and Tiberius Menya, the soldiers struggled at the backcourt but grew confident as the game progressed.
Ancette Wafula, Mike Tanui, Victor Odendo and Bernard Mufutu alternated at the position and head coach William Balozi was content with their display.
Ulinzi see of USIU 
“We are soldiers and when one is not around we fill in comfortably. Their absence is a setback but not a gap at all.” USIU-A led 27-25 at halftime but could not sustain the pressure in the second half.
Ulinzi won first quarter 14-12 and USIU-A the second 15-11.
The soldiers carried the day in second half winning third and fourth quarters 26-17 and 19-14 respectively. From 14 attempts, Ulinzi scored six 3-point shots and six free-throws from 19 attempts which worries Balozi.
“Our shooting, boxing out and screens were not up to scratch today.That is one area we must work on before the second game.”
Ancette Wafula was the man for Ulinzi scoring four three-point shots to top score with 21 points while William Ochieng scored 20. Alvin Nyangweso was USIUs top scorer with 14 points and Kevin Kigotho added 12. Overall, Ulinzi had 30 rebounds against USIUs 39.
In division one, Zetech University and Umoja won games one to enjoy the advantage. Zetech beat Dankind Academy 89-76 helped by 22 points from Joshua Kisali and 20 from Joshua Okumu. Dankind led 45-44 at the breather winning first quarter 26-20 and Zetech the second 24-19.
The turning point for Zetech was third quarter that they convincingly won 22-6 before Dankind took the fourth 25-23. Zetech scored 12 of their points from free-throws and nine from 3-point shots while Dankind had six free-throws and ten 3-point shots.
Umoja scored 52-45 against Kenya College of Accountancy- University (KCA-U). Kevin Sunguti top scored for Umoja with 13 points and Gilbert Obiero added 11 while KCA-U top scorers were Nick Oloo with 10 points and Alphonce Muchiri who added 10. Umoja scored 21 points from the 3-point line and seven from free-throw line while KCA-U had ten free-throws and three 3-point shots on target.