KBF men's final plunged into more dilemma

While the Kenya Basketball Federation (KBF) women's league concluded on 27 February, their male counterpart's match-up continues to be thrown into more uncertainty. 

Defending champions Ulinzi Warriors are reported to have written to the federation informing them of the team’s unavailability in the month of April as their players will be engaged in the inter-brigade games. 

“The team had hoped that the issues that bedevilled the final would have been dealt with fast enough to have the final played at the beginning of March,” a source told Mozzart Sport. 

At the time, KBF were dealing with an appeal by eventual finalists Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) after Equity Dumas walked off on their Game Five encounter with 59 seconds left on the clock and an initial verdict of the match being replayed was made. 

Dockers on revenge mission as KBF final is confirmed

An Independent Disciplinary panel was constituted and after deliberations, the match was awarded to the dockers.

The Sammy Kiki-led side won the series 3-2 against Dumas who had taken a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five semis series in Nairobi before heading to Mombasa needing a single win to romp to their first-ever final. 

While the final series was expected to throw off on the first weekend of April, giving the soldiers time to hit camp in preparation for KPA who have been in residential training in Mombasa for almost two weeks now, it has now emerged that the military side maintains their players will be unavailable. 

Sources privy to the details of the development say the federation is considering to have the final played on the last two weekends of April, effectively delaying the start of the 2022 season by close to two months. Earlier, the federation had planned to have the new season up and running by March.

 Efforts to reach the federation Secretary General Ambrose Kisoi and his fixtures secretary Joseph Amoko to get a date for the final were unsuccessful by the time of publication.