Basketball in Africa

Finals: Mashariki High Pelicans 51-66 KISU Bucks
3^rd Place Playoff: Hilton Nets 52-74 Crane High Trail Blazers
KISU Bucks has won the first ever junior basketball league in Uganda – the FUBA Junior NBA League.
Their coach Hans De Heer was delighted by the feat much as he admits it has been challenging.
“It (Season) has been challenging but again quite rewarding after the final” De Heer said.
The KISU Bucks saw of Mashariki Pelicans 66-51 thanks to a game high 39 points and 16 rebounds from Abraham Meron.
After a square first quarter, KISU’s abundance of offensive options started to show as they slowly but steadily started to pull away from Mashariki.
KISU 's coach De Heer says it came down to the quality in numbers.

The other team (Mahariki) has two good players – the number 14 (Fayed Baale) and their number 13 (Tayob Jal) but we had more quality in the numbers and that gave me more options to change the team without playing bad. The guys were keeping the momentum

Despite taking a mere 3 points lead into halftime, the KISU Bucks returned with a big second half.
Mashariki kept chasing and were paced by the MVP Fayed Baale but didn’t catch up as he got little help from the teammates. Baale poured in 36 points, picked 7 rebounds and swiped 10 steals. Tayob Jal chipped in with 7 points and game high 17 rebounds

Stephane Okonge had 10 points for KISU.
Maimi Heat’s forward, Luol Deng watched the youngsters from courtside and was impressed by what he saw.

It’s very exciting to see this. The program is going on and I can see the kids are being coached well. They know this the final and they are playing well together.

Meanwhile, Crane High Trailblazers beat Hilton High Nets 74-52 to take third place thanks to Andrew Kiseka’s 26 points and 11 rebounds. Emmanuel Makuel contributed 18 points and picked 18 rebounds while Ivan Matovu.
Roland Muwanguzi had a one man show for Hilton netting game high 35 points to go with 10 rebounds.