FIBA Women’s Afrobasket Qualifiers: Lionesses dumped out of final in crazy Saturday action

You would be forgiven if you at any point used any manner of strange permutations to come up with the two teams that would make it into Sunday’s final.

Such were the tight margins as Kenya – with their one loss in the championships- missed out on the opportunity to defend the Zone V title they won in 2021.

Kenya had one job to do on Saturday; win against Egypt and get ready for the final.

The opposite happened, as the Lionesses lost big and were forced to hinge on the late game’s result going their way.

As it happened, Uganda beat winless Rwanda 78-70 to book their spot in the final alongside Egypt, 82-57 winners over Kenya.

“The first criteria is on higher game points difference of the games between the three teams,” a part of the FIBA rules explained about what is used to separate teams with similar win-loss records.

Just for clarification, Kenya had to either win or lose by less than 15 points to qualify to the final.

Game Recap.

Madina Okot accounted for seven quick points inside the first four minutes of the first quarter to stay within touching distance of a fierce Egyptian team that looked to be in rhythm early on.

Nadine Mohammed Soliman’s consecutive treys would later extend the North African’s gap as Kenya made it hard for themselves by turning the ball over and failing to hit shots.

In a span of a minute with three minutes to go in the first quarter, the Lionesses made three costly turnovers that gave easy possession to Egypt, who closed out the period 21-16.

A promising rally from Victoria Reynolds and Melissa Otieno had Kenya going in the second quarter before Egypt made sizable separation through Soraia Deghady and Norhan Ahmed to extend the lead to double digits.

The Egyptian pair had a total of 17 points with over 50% shooting from field goal range.

Kenya endured another dry quarter after halftime as they accounted for 10 third quarters before keeping it tight in the final period – losing 19-18 to sadly bow out of the championships.

FIBA Women’s Afrobasket Qualifiers: Lionesses annihilate South Sudan to maintain perfect start

Mercy Wanyama was Kenya’s top scorer with 13 points with Madina Okot and Rose Ouma racking up 10 and 11 points respectively. Christine Akinyi had a strong day rebounding with 12 boards.

Kenya’s three point shooting was 3-of-25 while only 35.8% of their 2-point shots went in.

The Lionesses are scheduled to take on fourth-placed South Sudan in the third –fourth position playoff game before hosts Uganda face Egypt for a second time in three days in the finals.

The winners of the finals will book a place into the Afrobasket finals alongside Rwanda who earned a spot for being the hosts.

Kenya vs South Sudan tips off at 1500EAT.