Basketball in Africa

Saturday
Men
Patriots 74-72 IPRC- South
IPRC- Kigali 67-60 UGB
Women
APR 80-48 UR- CASS
IPRC- South basketball club head Coach Didier Bineza has hailed his players for the combative mentality despite a narrow 74-72 loss to rivals Patriots BBC on Saturday at Amahoro Stadium in the ongoing national basketball league.
In what looked like a balanced and defensive game at the beginning, Henry Mwinuka’s Patriots claimed the first quarter (10-09) before dominating the second one 26-11 to go into half-time with a 36-20 lead.
Huye-based IPRC- South returned for the final two quarters visibly strong and more energetic to grab the third and fourth quarter by 29-21, 23-17. but it was not enough to save the day for the Integrated Polytechnic Regional Center (IPRC) of South Province.
Point-guard Yesman Bushiri of IPRC- South scored a game high 19 points while skipper Bienvenue Niyonsaba added 13 points. Patriots’ small forward Patrick Habiyaremye of Patriots scored 16 points while Patrick Habyarimana and Ally Kubwimana netted 11 points each.
In a post-match interview with Times Sport, IPRC- South tactician Bineza said his players did all they could despite the defeat and tipped them to bounce back in next fixtures.
“Generally we played well; we will learn from this defeat and bounce back stronger for the next matches. Patriots were lucky today, my players showed a strong mentality.”
Both sides had won their respective first league games, Patriots humiliated CSK 83-40 on December 5 while IPRC- South thrashed UGB 89-45 in the opening match of the season on November 28.
Elsewhere on Saturday, Albert Buhake’s team IPRC- Kigali registered second victory with a 67-60 win over United Generation Basketball Club (UGB) after previously defeating APR 67-50 in their first league game of the 2015/2016 campaign.
In women’s league, holders APR humiliated UR- College of Arts and Social Sciences (UR- CASS) (80-48) at Amahoro stadium to get off to a positive start of the title defense battle.
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