AfroBasket 2021: South Sudan edge Kenya Morans to qualify for quarterfinals

National men's basketball team, Kenya Morans, are out of the ongoing FIBA Afrobasket Championships after falling to debutants South Sudan 60-58.

In a game of two halves, Morans were a pale shadow of the team fans have known and come to love as they allowed their rivals to run riot on the court to put the match seemingly away in the first two periods.

However, a brilliant performance in the second half brought the Liz Mills' men just a point form equalising the score and their fans' hearts beating out of control as they anxiously waited for that equalising shot that never was.

They came so near yet so far as the ghosts from their first half and the championship generally, top of the list being turnovers, denied the home boys a chance to reach the quarter final stage of the continental showpiece.

South Sudan spelled trouble for Morans in the first five minutes of the match, going 10-0 up before Tom 'Bush' Wamukota broke the deadlock for the Kenyans with a mid-range jumper to get his teammates going.

Holding a comfortable lead early in the match, the Royal Ivey-coached men barely noticed their shortcoming in trey attempts that were not falling in the first quarter. They made up for that with points on the paint, heading g to the first break on a nine-point lead at 20-11.

Six points was all Morans could manage in ten minutes of the second period, a disappointing scoreline for a team that had held their own against tough opposition in Mali to get to this stage of the competition. Ivey's men managed 15 to extend their lead to 13 points heading to the breather.

On resumption, Morans had risen from their ruins and were spoiling for a fight. Albert Odero, seeing as the team's go-to scorer Tylor Ongwae was double-teamed whenever on possession took the mantle and slowly dug the team out of the seemingly deep hole they had buried themselves in with a below-par first half performance.

With him came Ariel Okal and the rest of squad toe the line. In the first five minutes of the second half, the side had scored more points than they had managed in two quarters of 20 minutes, dropping 18 while restricting South Sudan to nine, to cut a 20-point lead (39-19).

The two sides went for the third quarter break with Kenya trailing by ten points at 51-41.

Odera knocked down back-to-back treys in the first two minutes of the final period and an additional two pointer reducing South Sudan's advantage to four points. The difference was further reduced to half a basket but two costly turnovers knocked Morans off their momentum allowing the opponent to creat an avoidable six-point gap at 58-52 with five minutes to play.

Morans worked their way to within a basket of leveling the score at 60-58 with less than a minute to play. Wamukota went for a lay-up and when the whistle went he and the many Kenyan fans following the match on their screen and at the Kigali Arena thought their chance to finally match the youngest nation in the world on scores had come.

To their heartbreak, however, the towering centre player had just committed a crime on the court, a charge on South Sudan's already set defence line, and the punishment would be loss of possession. Consequently, he was also out of the match, that being his fifth foul.

With the clock reading 29 seconds, all South Sudan needed was to hold on to their possession and run down the clock leaving Morans with less than ten seconds to change the game in their favour.

South Sudan's attempt on the basket was unsuccessful and Ongwae had the ball just across the centre line with six seconds to go.

At this point, many must have been praying for the 'Ongwae miracle'. Twice, the Denmark-based forward has won Kenya crucial matches with a buzzer beater, first at the AfroCAN and again as Kenya recorded a win against Angola during the qualifiers to book a ticket to the Afrobasket.

This time, however, the gods of the South Sudanese fans belting songs and dance at the Kigali Arena must have been working double shifts. Unlike in the other two instances, Ongwae had no time to calculate his move beyond the arch for a trey that would have won Kenya the match. He went up just in time but his attempt hit the rim and bounced off to the back side and out of play, sending the South Sudan bench into a frenzy.

The Kenyan team had played their hearts out, but it was just not their day to win.

Attention for Mills' charges now shifts to the FIBA World Cup African qualifiers set to begin in November 2021.

Morans land group D in FIBA World Cup Africa Qualifiers