Kaluma announces arrival by sending Uganda to Afrobasket championship

Arthur Kaluma. You will encounter that name for some time if you intend to follow Ugandan basketball, the national team in particular.

The American based forward introduced himself to the global scene Thursday night as he inspired the men’s basketball team, Silverbacks to a commanding 77-65 win over Morocco in Rabat. The victory sent Uganda to a third straight FIBA Afrobasket Championship slated for next month in Kigali, Rwanda.

The 19-year-old, whose national team debut was delayed following the team’s Covid-19 woes in Monastir early this year, scored a game-high 20 points, collected five rebounds got two steals in the Black, Yellow and Red of Uganda.

He got 10 of his 20 in final five minutes of the game with the hosts attempting to get back in the game.

Uganda had a jittery start in the first five minutes of the game but recovered well with quick transition offence giving them a 20-10 lead after the first quarter.

George Galanopoulos’s charges were largely in charge of proceedings and only had a few hiccups in beating the Moroccan zone defence that often forced turn overs.

The home side scored 21 points and limited Uganda to 12 in the second quarter to close the gap to just one point going into the second half.

Tonny Drileba opened the third quarter with a corner three and this was followed by a Robinson Opong layup to give Uganda cushion. The team went on to create an 11-point difference (55-44) going into the last ten minutes.

Not even a long delay to have the hoop fixed midway through the fourth quarter could stop Uganda. Ishmail Wainright drew fouls and converted on the line while Kaluma showed his clutch mentality to close out the contest and finish the campaign with a 3-1 record.

The reward for the Silverbacks’ victory is a place in Group D of the finals alongside former African champions Senegal, Cameroon and highly rated debutants South Sudan.

Cape Verde join hosts Rwanda, 11-time record African champions Angola and DR Congo in Group A.

Long walk

There hasn’t been anything easy for the Silverbacks, especially for the second window of qualifiers.

The first blow came in February when the team had to leave the tournament bubble in Monastir, Tunisia just hours to their game with Egypt due to reported Covid-19 cases in their camp.

The games would later be rescheduled by FIBA but this came with financial implications since Uganda had to travel for their fixtures to countries that have facilities which meet the minimum standards.

National Council of Sports made it clear they didn’t expect to get enough money to fund the team and Fuba together with the national team committee had to find ways of taking the team to Morocco with or without financial support from government. The support didn’t come.

The team then had to deal with travel hiccups as Morocco authorities informed them the team would have to quarantine for ten days on arrival, which meant they would not get time to train.

The camp was moved to Egypt and the team only crossed to Morocco a few days to the game since travellers from Egypt are exempted from the 10-day quarantine.

The win on Thursday night might have sent Uganda to a third straight Afrobasket championship but it also saved money that would have been spent on a trip to Praia.