Morans top tough pool to qualify for AfroCan quarters

Despite losing their second group match against hard-fighting Gabon, national basketball men's team Kenya Morans have qualified directly to the AfroCan quarters. 

Morans who picked a convincing 62-52 victory over Ivory Coast in the tournament's opening match played on Saturday 8th  July found themselves in trouble on Monday 10 July as they went down 66-63 to Gabon.

The loss meant all teams in group A had won and lost once with the group ranking coming down to point difference. 

The Cliff Owuor-coached Morans were the better side of the three and are thus lucky to avoid the pre-quarters path that they took in 2019 on their way to winning silver at the inaugural edition.

“We came here confident but made a few costly mistakes against Gabon. From the statistics, it is evident that we did not give our best. We had a lot of turnovers that affected our performance.” Morans’ Rwanda-based center Tom ‘Bush’ Wamukota said.

In the first stanza, Morans had a half-basket advantage at 16-15 and played for 16-12 in the second period to head to the longer break with a five-point advantage.

However, the Central Africans returned from the locker rooms guns blazing ready to prove no pushovers and took advantage of each and every mistake from the Morans to punish and give themselves a fighting chance.

Scoring 27 points in the third quarter against Kenya’s 18 meant the game was turned into a see-saw before the East Africans were punished by a clutch trey that won the match for Gabon.

US-based Derrick Ogechi was Kenya’s top scorer with 16, eight rebounds and one assist as Tanzania-based Bramwell Muchina led in rebounding with 11, managing six points in just over 26 minutes of action. Eugene Adera was the other man in double digits with 12 points.

Kenya will have two days of rest before suiting up for the knock-out stage against the winner of the pre-quarters clash between Cameroon and the loser between Tunisia and Morocco.