Falcons, City Oil renew hostilities

By Charles Mutebi

National Basketball League Finals

Women

UCU v KCCA

Men

Falcons v City Oil

CITY Oil have seen enough over the first two games of the Playoffs Finals to abandon the idea that it’s too early for them to win a National Basketball League championship.

The Falcons, of course, never had any doubts after reaching the Finals by eliminating a leading contender and then the reigning champions. 

With the best-of-seven series tied at 1-1, both teams go into today’s Game 3 at the YMCA with no reservations about their title credentials. Folks, this series may simply be about to get hotter. 

A confident Juruni 

“We know exactly what we need to do going forward,” said City Oil coach Mandy Juruni in the aftermath of his team’s 84-76 Game 2 loss on Sunday.

Juruni’s confidence partly stemmed from the brilliant basketball his side played in the first 25 minutes of the match. It that spell, the Oilers looked like a seasoned Finals unit and not the NBL debutants they actually are.

Yet at the end of match what really mattered was the box score and that was in the favour of the Falcons. Moreover a Falcons’ side that was without the injured Geoff Omondi and had Phillip Ameny playing through pain in his right leg.

Asked whether the injuries may take a toll, Abdullah Ramadan (who gunned a gamehigh 30 points on Sunday) said, “When you are in the Finals, you can’t concentrate on the pain. You have to force yourself to play and that is what we will do”.

The women’s battle 

In the women’s NBL Finals, the UCU Canons and KCCA Leopards also meet for Game 3 of their best-of-seven series with little to separate them after the first two games. 

The affair has been so close that not only have the two rivals split the first two games, both will be without their most dominant front-court players for the rest of the series. Why? 

UCU’s Peace Proscovia and KCCA’s Martha Soigi travelled to Singapore with the Uganda netball team for a tournament.