City Oilers target further improvements in Africa
5th best in Africa. City Oil director Hassan Ahmed (left) and team captain Jimmy Enabu poses with the Fair Play award Oilers won in Tunisia at the Africa Club Champions Cup. The side finished fifth, an improvement from 9th place of last year.
Kampala- With four straight National Basketball League titles and two regional crowns in the last five years, City Oilers have made a habit of winning.
And as they celebrated the feat that ranks them as the fifth best team on the continent from the just concluded Fiba Africa Champions Cup, they gave the impression they will not be dwelling too much on.
“We finished behind the Moroccan team, the two home teams from Tunisia and best Angolan team (nine-time champions of Africa Cup) and we are proud of our achievement. Uganda can now be recognized on the continent,” Muhammad Santur, the City Oilers manager said at a press conference held on Friday at Nakawa on their return from the competition.
Those remarks were however quickly followed by what believes his club will have to do dine with the big boys at the competition won by Morocco’s AS Sale, a team they lost to 91-81 in the group stages.
“The big teams do a lot of scouting and have so much information about the opponents. The two week- camps are no longer enough because the other teams prepare by playing in various international tournaments,” Santur further revealed.
“We need to prepare better in terms of logistics and scouting,” he added when further quizzed.
At the event the club further revealed plans of setting up an academy in future that will help nurture players to form the core of the team in addition to foreign imports that are common phenomenon at the African Championship.
“We want to build an an academy and with say the Under-12,” he further revealed.
The Oilers now switch focus to the 2017 National Basketball League final against a well-rested KIU Titans, postponed to allow them feature in Tunisia.
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