City Oilers not about to slow down
Even after winning nine league titles in a row, City Oilers want more. PHOTO/JOHN BATANUDDE
What you need to know:
The victory left the champions in a class of their own, with the closest challengers in the trophy count, Falcons, still stuck on six since 2007 and no indicators of chasing down the new owners in town.
City Oilers marched to their ninth straight championship following Wednesday night’s 78-63 pummelling of KIU Titans to win the best-of-seven series 4-2.
The victory left the champions in a class of their own, with the closest challengers in the trophy count, Falcons, still stuck on six since 2007 and no indicators of chasing down the new owners in town.
But every other year the Oilers are successful, raises questions about the competition in the National Basketball League and whether any other side can turn up and shove Mandy Juruni’s charges off the top.
“We have to keep winning whenever an opportunity is there,” Juruni said during the team’s title celebrations Friday night.
“We want to continue with the development of the club and players and write more history in Ugandan basketball,” he added.
UCU Canons, Dmark Power, Falcons, Namuwongo Blazers and KIU have all tried to stop Oilers in the finals, but with no success. And the bar seems to go higher with every taste of silverware.
After surviving the Blazers’ scare last season, Oilers responded by adding Uganda’s best prospects, Fayed Baale and Titus Lual, to their already star-studded side, the result of which is yet another championship.
Bigger things
Oilers tested basketball at the biggest level in Africa and looked shabby as they finished bottom of the Nile Conference with a 1-4 record to rule themselves of the playoffs.
The goal, now, is to do better at that level. And, if the team manager Grace Kwizera’s words are to be taken seriously, the belief is there that the BAL title can come to Uganda in the not-so-distant future.
“We want to win BAL in five years,” Kwizera vowed.
The debut season was a wake-up call to the Ugandan champions, whose recruitment for the continent’s most significant competition left more questions than answers. And the results told the entire story, and Oilers were sent packing with relative ease.
Juruni said: “We have to build the club to start dominating at continental level.”
The journey to their second BAL season will start at the Elite 16 level in South Africa in about two weeks. The competition will run between November 14 and 19 to determine the teams to play in the BAL regular season.
