Silverbacks await Kalwanyi's arrival for Afrobasket

2017 AfroBasket (Men)

After a ten day camp in Alexandria, Uganda's men's national basketball team, the Silverbacks await the arrival of their colleague and teammate Sam Kalwanyi who should be joining them sooner rather than later ahead of the 2017 AfroBasket in Dakar.

The arrival of the power forward with extremely good defensive abilities was delayed by his American college ahead of the AfroBasket contest. He is expected to join the rest of the team in Senegal ahead of the games that start Friday with the Silverbacks facing Angola in the opening game.

Kalwanyi who last played for the national team and City Oilers 18 months ago is expected to deliver much more than what his old self was capable of. 

Silverbacks, in addition to having had better preparations for their second AfroBasket since 2015, have also got a stronger team. With players like A'Darius Pegues, Kalwanyi, Stanley Ociti, Steven Omonyi, Jimmy Enabu and Robinson Odoch Opong, a better performance compared to their debut two years ago where they finished 15th out of 16 competitors is expected.  

"We are stronger this time," said the team manager Mohammed Santur. "I think Jimmy has grown massively as a point guard while Robinson is a wonderful player. If you consider the addition of other players both local and international I believe we are good to go." 

The 11 man squad and four officials that travelled on Tuesday night landed in Dakar Wednesday.

Group A: Nigeria, DR Congo, Mali & Cote d'Ivoire

Group B: Angola, CAR, Morocco & Uganda

Group C: Tunisia, Guinea, Rwanda & Cameroon

Group D: Senegal, Mozambique, Egypt & South Africa

Uganda's fixtures: Sept 8 v Angola, Sept 9 v CAR, Sept 10 v Morocco