Natuhereza happy with U18's performance at AfroBasket

U18 basketball team Silverbacks' head coach Nick Natuhereza believes his charges performed to their expectations despite finishing 9th overall out of 11 teams at the FIBA Africa Championships in Rwanda.

Addressing the press at Hima Cement offices in Kampala, Natuhereza hailed his boys for putting up a formidable performance despite the little time they had for preparation.

"I would like first of all to appreciate Hima Cement for supporting the team on short notice, I was kind of shocked but excited when I learnt that they had come in because at one time we were not sure that we shall travel," he said.

"It was a tough tournament for us, we played against teams that have been at that level for a while but I believe we did our best considering the circumstances; we didn't prepare as well as we would have liked to but the boys played their hearts out and I was satisfied with the performance," Natuhereza added.

The team's manager Mohamed Santur was also grateful to Hima for having offered the team fifty percent of their budget to Kigali.

Hima Cement country marketing director Allan Ssemakula said they were ready to continue to offer support to national teams that will continue to hoist the Ugandan flag.

Making their debut at the championship, the Ugandan boys played against Angola who went on to win the tournament and against Egypt, Tunisia, DRC and Benin.

Hima Cement offered the team $6000 (sh20m) with NCS facilitating their travel while other individual sponsors gave a combined sh17m towards the team for the championship that was held at the Amahoro Stadium.

Uganda will on August 21 send a girls' U-8 team to Egypt for a similar tournament.