The Silverbacks will aim to leave an indelible mark on the Afrobasket Championship due in Congo-Brazzaville in August as they did at the recently-concluded Africa Zone V qualifiers, reports Ndyamuhaki Emanzi.
It was the Silverbacks’ 77-64 win over arch-rivals Rwanda in the semi-finals, that guaranteed them a place at this year’s Afrobasket championship. In fact, it did not matter that they lost the final to Egypt 72-95 last Saturday.
This will be the second time Uganda appears at the Afrobasket championship, after their first in Tunisia, 2015. However, preparing adequately is important to ensure Uganda are not the whipping boys as the case was in Tunisia.
Then, the Silverbacks lost all their three group games: 55-77 to Tunisia, 59-98 to Nigeria and 56-60 to the Central African Republic. They ended up carrying the wooden spoon.
And if their preparations for the Zone V recently are anything to go by, they will struggle. The team had to wait until the last minute to get all the money they needed to travel to Egypt. This meant that they were unable to have a training camp and a few friendly games before the games started, as they had arranged.
The Federation of Uganda Basketball Associations (Fuba) vice-president, Nasser Sserunjogi, said that they were working around trying to ensure some preparatory games for the team. But that will require funding from government.
Sserunjogi said the team will need at least $100,000 (Shs 360 million) to get their preparations up to speed. But also, if Uganda is to be competitive, they will need to get its foreign-based players with the team early.
The impact of American-based A’Darius Pegues and Stanley Ociti, Uganda’s leading big men at the Zone V, cannot be underestimated. Silverbacks coach Mandy Juruni referred to Pegues as a beast, for his all-round imposing game, that most opponents failed to contend with.
Yet, Pegues was playing for Uganda for the first time. But this did not stop him averaging 20 points a game, to show how easily he fitted in. His partner on the front court Ociti was not far off either in terms of scores.
This could be the time to start tracking Sweden-based guards Samuel Mukooza and Kassim Nangwere, who helped Uganda qualify the first time alongside Josh Johnson from the UK and John Balwigaire based in the USA.
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