The national men’s basketball team, The Silverbacks, lost 67-79 to a select side in their first buildup game on Friday night at the Lugogo indoor stadium.
The game was lined up to boost the team’s preparations for their Fiba Africa Zone V Afro-basket qualifiers due next month in Egypt. However, Silverbacks’ coach Mandy Juruni felt his team is still far away from being at the level he wants. The Silverbacks have been in non-residential training for close to three weeks. So, losing to a hurriedly- assembled select side did not augur well.
Juruni is worried the team would fail to qualify for the Afrobasket championships later this year if they don’t improve in time. To get there, The Silverbacks must finish in the top two places at the Zone V qualifiers in which they will face Egypt, Kenya, Burundi, Tanzania and Rwanda.
To stand a chance, they must be better coordinated than they were on Friday.
“We are yet to learn each other in terms of movement. Without coordination it is difficult to play with organization for effectiveness,” centre Ivan Lumanyika said.
But Lumanyika is convinced that by the time the games begin, the team will have gotten the chemistry. Juruni has until next Friday to select eight players from the 12 local-based players, who will be joined by four foreign-based stars.
He is optimistic foreign-based players will boast the team’s efficiency. For example, US-based centre Stanley Ociti is favoured to be on the team.
And with him is hope that the area of post players (big men) will be improved. James Okello and Mike Madol, two of the three big men, scored only two and four points in 14 and 20 minutes respectively.