Coach Liz Mills out of Kenya Morans as WCQ provisional squad is named

Coach Cliff Owuor is back at the helm of the national men's basketball team, Kenya Morans, Mozzart Sport can confirm.

The tactician left the team in 2021 as they were preparing for the final Afrobasket qualification round played in Cameroon and her place was taken by Australian Liz Mills. 

Morans are expected to begin non residential camp on 22 January with residential training likely to begin a week later as they prepare for the World Cup Qualifiers (WCQ). 

The team landed group D where they play Senegal, Egypt and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the FIBA World Cup African qualifiers scheduled for February. 

FIBA Basketball World Cup is set to take place next year in Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines. The 2023 edition of the FIBA Basketball World Cup marks the first time multiple countries will host this event. 

In the lead up to the team naming, it had emerged that there were rifts between the playing unit and the outgoing tactician with the players writing to the Kenya Basketball Federation (KBF) executive expressing a "Vote of no confidence" in her. The letter seen by Mozzart Sport questioned her coaching ethics and relation with players among other things. 

However, KBF Secretary General Ambrose Kisoi, who acknowledged receipt of the letter from the Morans playing unit, says the federation had engaged Mills for the period of the AfroBasket. "She came in as a volunteer but we still sat with her and agreed on terms of engagement. Her engagement ended with the Afrobasket Championship," offered Kisoi.