Basketball in Africa

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Sunday
Patriots 105-72 Rusizi
IPRC-Kigali 86-60 UR-CASS
CSK BBC 48-73 U18 Boys Team
Saturday
Men
IPRC-Kigali 80-85 IPRC-South
UGB 60-54 UR-CASS
Women
The Hoops 50-58 APR
IPRC-South overcame rivals IPRC-Kigali in a hard earned 85-80 win on Saturday to maintain top spot in the national basketball league.
This was the 7th successive league victory for Didier Bineza’s title hopefuls, and comes on the back of last weekend’s 64-55 win against reigning champions Espoir. The Huye-based side has only lost one game this season, a 73-71 defeat to Patriots on match day 2 last December.
Bineza’s youthful team are well-known for getting better in the latter part of the game, but it was totally a different story on Saturday. The Huye-based side won the first and second quarters; 23-16 and 24-21 respectively to register a 47-37 lead going into half-time.
However, Albert Buhake’s IPRC- Kigali, led by Steve Havugintwari returned for the second-half, much improved to claim the third quarter 28-22, but their Southern Province rivals upped their game to steal the final quarter 16-15 for a deserved 85-80 win.
Rwanda international Havugintwari scored the game high 27 points, youngster Bruno Nyamwasa added 19 for IPRC-Kigali, but individual efforts from the duo were not enough to get a victory.
Sunny Niyomugabo (24 points), Bienvenu Niyonsaba (22 points) and Didier Ishimwe (15 points) got a total of 61 points for IPRC-South, who stayed a point ahead of second-placed and still unbeaten Patriots—however, IPRC-South have played a game more.
Elsewhere on Saturday, United Generation Basketball (UGB) won 60-54 over Charles Mushumba’s UR- College of Arts and Social Sciences (UR- CASS).
As it stands, IPRC-South tops the table standings with 17 points from nine games, unbeaten Patriots are second with maximum 16 points, IPRC-Kigali moved into third place with 15 points, while holders Espoir are fourth with 14 points from eight games.