KCCA Leopards basketball club have a chance to win the women’s national basketball league championship this evening if they beat UCU Ladies at the YMCA courts in Wandegeya tonight, writes JOHN VIANNEY NSIMBE.
It appears like a long time ago since the UCU Ladies last won a game. When one considers that they have lost the last three games in quick succession to KCCA Leopards, UCU’s wins in the first two games of this year’s best of seven series playoff finals, are indeed a distant memory.
In fact, UCU look to have lost the cutting edge they had over KCCA. Before these finals, UCU beat KCCA three times in four meetings previously. However, now that KCCA have taken the initiative, and lead 3-2, there does not seem any way UCU can stop them winning a sixth league title.
And the detail is in the trend. Since KCCA’s first win in these series, a 58-54 scoreline in game three, the subsequent results in game four 71-63 and the most recent game five 74-64 on December 4, have been telling.
The significance of KCCA’s last two results is that they have upped the ante, playing at a totally- different level from UCU in terms of efficiency. Even individual performances showed.
KCCA’s power-forward Maimuna Namuwaya scored a game high 27 points while the team’s point-guard and skipper Flavia Oketcho equally blistered with 25 points. This is stark in comparison with what any individual UCU player could come up with. Shooting guard Judith Nansobya, who top-scored for UCU, scored 15 points.
UCU’s next best performers, point-guard Rosine Micomyiza and Sarah Ageno managed 10 points, yet the MVP for 2015, Vilma Achieng, UCU’s centre only scored six points in a whopping 33 minutes of the 40 a game is played.
Notably, Achieng’s performances are an embodiment of UCU’s problems, particularly because it is difficult for a team to succeed unless its post players, as Achieng is, play well. But her body language has clearly looked casual at best, at this critical time, when a championship is at stake.
As the biggest UCU player, Achieng would do better than just score 25 points in the last three games. However, Nansobya said it all comes down to the entire team: “We have all not played well lately either on offence or defence, and at the end of it all, we have lost.”
On whether they still have a fighting chance, Nansobya said: “Absolutely. We just have to fight harder together as a group with utmost belief.”
On the other hand, KCCA’s Oketcho will not be carried away by the notion: Ain’t no stopping KCCA now. To her, that will only be after they have battled harder than in the previous games, and won game six.
