Kenya Morans exit WC Qualifiers winless, what next?

National men’s basketball team Kenya Morans are out of the FIBA Africa World Cup qualifiers, exiting without a single win in the four-team group D that played its matches across two windows.

Morans were part of a 16-team elite group that was fighting to book the five slots available for the continent to next year’s World Cup.

Twists and turns as Morans finally cleared to travel

The sixteen nations were Angola, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Congo DR, Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Sudan, Tunisia and Uganda. 

One thing has remained constant for the Morans across the two windows that the team has had to do duty for the country, poor preparations.

In the just-concluded outing in Egypt, the team barely trained and travelled with eight players and one coach. The situation was not far from what happened in the February window.

Coach Sadat Gaya, in an interview with the team before the team left, admitted to needing better preparations in future events if things are to change.

Gracious Liz Mills calls out fun-loving, underperforming and insecure Morans in exit debacle

Morans got the qualifiers off to a losing start in February, going down 66-56 to Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and it was downhill from there on. They fell 105-51 to Egypt and100-55 to Senegal.

In the just concluded window, it was a 20-00 walkover against DRC, as the team arrived in Alexandria a day late and barely had time to rest before going down 72-39 and 86-54 to Egypt and Senegal respectively.

Kenya exits the qualifiers alongside Rwanda, Central Republic and Mali who were disqualified from the tournament and the results of all games they played nullified for handing a second walkover. 

The 12 teams that have qualified for the second round of action have been divided into two pools. In the first round, the 16 teams were divided into four groups with four team apiece.

Mutinous Morans' damning letter that may have cost Australian Liz Mills her national basketball team job

Each team faced the other three teams in their group in two tournaments played over three event windows. The teams played three games in each window between November 2021, February 2022 and June 2022.

The top three teams from each group have now advanced to the Second Round, carrying over their results from the First Round.

In the Second Round, each team will play each new team in their group during two tournaments played over two event windows scheduled in August 2022 and February 2023.

At the end of these additional six games per team, the two top teams in each group, along with the best third-placed team, will qualify to the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023.