Zone V: Uganda hope for more than quota-filling at tournament

Kampala.

From one Fiba Africa Zone V Club Championship to another, the only certainty is that Uganda labour to fill their quota of four teams.

Most clubs are normally thin on financial resources as taking a team to the regional event will cost no less than Shs30m. Add Shs5m to that and UCU are able to run their women’s team, the Lady Canons, for a whole year, bar the scholarships given to student players.

When this year’s tournament tips off today in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, Uganda will have filled all its four slots.

All four finalists from last year, two men’s and two women’s sides, made the trip to the coast hoping to do more than fill Uganda’s quota.

City Oilers
When Oilers started in 2011, the target was to win a regional title in five years. Time is running out.
After all, what else is there to win here after winning back-to-back-to-back league titles? Oilers set out to win this.

Coach Mandu Juruni’s partly blamed their recent wobble in the league on Zone V ‘focus’.

Foreign-based Stanley Ociti is expected to beef the side. This is their third successive appearance in the Zone V.

After finishing third in Mombasa, Kenya in 2014 on debut, Oilers signed Burundi’s Landry Ndikumana, then the Most Valuable Player (MVP).

Third became second last year in Kigali, Rwanda.
There is only one way this can be counted as a success. Oilers are in this to win it. They have not hidden their aspirations at all.

UCU Canons
Often, UCU’s roster has so many foreigners that playing at this competition where you are allowed only two non-Ugandans isn’t ideal.

Coach Nicholas Natuhereza has had to make the tough calls, picking Sudanese Steven Wundi and Tanzanian Tanzanian Fadhil Chuma.

He left out Kenyan Brian Namake as they took a body-sapping 25-hour road trip on Wednesday and will use only 11 players.

If ‘big men’ Desmond Owili and Ivan Lumanyika had stayed this year, teams would have to beat UCU to win it.
Natuhereza is only here with the boys’ team for the first time since 2010 and travelling to Tanzania is a success in itself.

KCCA Leopards
Few coaches in this league understand the smell of a basketball as well as Timothy Odeke does. “The chef”, then on threadbare talent, took KCCA to the semifinals of the 2014 edition in Mombasa.

Odeke is in Tanzania without centre Martha Soigi.
A fit and hungry Maureen Amoding is perhaps the unlikely complement KCCA need to improve on losing in last year’s final.

UCU Lady Canons
A fourth place finish in Mombasa gave UCU Lady Canons some kind of standing in the region.

Centre Vilma Achieng warned that there is no reason why the five-time national league champions cannot go all the way on their fourth appearance at the Zone V. UCU has had better teams than this.

However, guard Judith Nansobya’s shot, Achieng’s rebounding and Zainab Lokwameri’s scoring will decide their position.