Basketball: UCU Canons raid Falcons

Nov 07, 2014

The UCU Canons have won only one top-flight playoff series in their entire history, a kind of record that honestly undermines the common perception of the Canons as one of the big shots in the NBL.

By Charles Mutebi

Pepsi National Basketball League Playoffs

Best-of-3 Quarterfinals
Women: Stormers 85 Nkumba 75 (Stormers lead 1-0)
Men: Power 71 KIU 61 (Power lead 1-0)

Today, YMCA
Women: A1 v KIU
Men: UCU v Falcons

KAMPALA - The UCU Canons have won only one top-flight playoff series in their entire history.

It’s the kind of record that honestly undermines the common perception of the Canons as one of the big shots in what is now the National Basketball League (NBL).

A fairer description of UCU, who are back in the postseason and play Game one of their best-ofthree quarterfinals against the Krishna Falcons today at the YMCA, would be dark horses.

“We are definitely not favourites for this title,” Nick Natuhereza told New Vision with a touch of dry humour.

“So you can call us dark horses if you want.”

Since gaining promotion to top flight in 2007, the Canons have put up impressive regular season runs only to melt in the intense postseason heat.

By contrast, the Falcons have a record of turning poor regular seasons into successful playoff campaigns, as witnessed last season when they entered the postseason as the seventh seed and bounced all the way to a Finals Game 7.

In fact, every time the Falcons have met UCU in the playoffs, the Canons have been the higher seed and form-book favourites to progress.

And every time, the Falcons have won.

Once again, the fourth-seeded Canons are (going by recent results) favourites to oust the Steven Omony-led Falcons. But history suggests the opposite.

In the women’s series, A1 Challenge and the KIU Rangers play Game 1 of their bestof- three quarterfinals with little to choose between the two.

It should be an exciting series from start to finish.