Gaya highlights areas of concern for Kenya Morans as preparations continue

National men’s basketball team, Kenya Morans, on Friday and Saturday played friendly matches against Equity Dumas and a South Sudan select team of Kenyan-based players.

The team is in non-residential training in preparation for the second edition of the FIBA AfroCan slated for 8 to 16 July in Angola. This will be the second appearance for Morans, having bagged silver in the inaugural edition.

Coach Sadat Gaya who has been in charge of the friendlies played so far alongside Ancet Wafula has pointed out areas that the team needs to work on before heading out to Angola.

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In Saturday’s clash against South Sudan, Morans picked a 65-42 win, coming off a 99-97 win against the bankers the previous night. Eric Mutoro shot 24 in the win, the only player to hit double digits in the match.

Morans trailed 11-15 in the first quarter but recovered in the second quarter as Mutoro made 12 of his points in the period to give Gaya’s men a dominant 18-04 score for a ten-point lead at half time.

The third quarter was closely contested with Morans winning 19-17 before killing off the match with a 17-06 score in the final quarter for a 23-point win.

“We knew they would be competitive. They are tall, young and energetic and they gave us nice competition and a run for our money especially in the first half and we were able to gauge ourselves. We started the first quarter well but did not end it well and we had to adjust for a better show in the other quarters. We obviously have work to do before we can be competition ready,” Gaya offered after the match.

The tactician is relying on local based players with the only international, Derrick Ogechi, having arrived in the court on Friday and thus had little time to train before the South Sudan friendly. He managed eight points in 22 minutes, the second-best scorer after Mutoro.

“While we are working on getting better defensively, our offense is also not fluid. We struggled to shoot the basketball against South Sudan and our rebounding could have been better.

We have a lot that we have to clean up. We have our first international in camp and we gave him some game time to get his game legs. We are hopeful that we will get more players coming in in the new week so we can have a clear picture of the choices we have,” he added.

Gaya admits that the team is lacking size at the moment but says there is no cause for alarm as players expected in camp in the new week will help the team address that especially in the center position.