Afrobasket qualifiers

Afro Basket

Cape Verde 78 – 73 Uganda

Uganda 72 - 62 Nigeria

Libya 79 - 59 Uganda

The Uganda Silverbacks were without Ishmail Wainwright, Brandon Davis, Arthur Kaluma, skipper Jimmy Enabu, and Deng Geu for the first window of the FIBA 2025 Afro basket Qualifiers in Tunisia.

That was out of Uganda's control.

However, traveling without a training camp for the available players wasn't.

If you are looking for reasons behind Uganda's 1-2 performance in Tunisia, the inadequate preparations of Mandy Juruni's team must be taken into account.

With the majority of the squad composed of home-based players, including debutants Edgar Munaba and Joel Kayiira, one could argue there was a great need for a pre-qualifier camp.

Instead, the team was called up with days to spare and left for Tunisia five days before the opener against Cape Verde.

Robinson Opong and Emmanuel Womala only joined the team a day before the game.

The lack of key personnel and preparation told particularly in the third quarter against Cape Verde when Uganda were outscored 26 to 14 points as well as against Libya when Opong's offensive struggles had no solution.

The Libya contest was the lowest-scoring outing for the Ugandan side, who managed 13 and 12 points respectively in the second and fourth quarters.

Uganda's 72-62 victory over Nigeria was the result of a special performance from Opong, whose 39 points are a record in the current format of Afro-basket qualification.

Uganda, who are third in Group B, must finish in the top three to qualify for AfroBasket 2025. The next qualification window will be played in February next year.