Mayienga's work cut out as Kenya Lionesses hit camp

National women’s basketball team, Kenya Lionesses, are set to begin training at Nyayo Indoor Arena on Monday 16 January ahead of the FIBA Africa Zone Five women’s Afrobasket qualifiers.

Head coach George Mayienga who is set to guide the side in the competition scheduled for 12 to 19 February in Kampala, Uganda will have a full plate as he readies the team for battle.

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A provisional squad of 27 was named last week but the tactician and his assistants Antony Ojukwu and Eunice Ouma will begin working without five who are based out of the country, set to join camp later.

“Our first order of business is to identify how many of those called are available and workout a training schedule that will accommodate all since we are on non-residential camp and that can be challenging.

The team has not trained together since 2021 and while that comes with its challenges we also have new faces and the team will have to gel in the shortest time possible. We have barely a month of training, which is not enough time but we will have to work with what we have,” Mayienga outlined.

The tactician admits that there will be pressure to perform seeing as they managed to win the zonal qualifiers in their last outing to qualify for the 2021 Women’s Afrobasket hosted in Cameroon.

“In 2021 we had more time to prepare and the team had also undergone a revamp which left us very unpredictable. Right now, however, our opponents have an idea of who is ion the squad and so we have to change tact from how we approached the championship in 2021. That said, we have to first get to camp and take stock of what we are working with.

I have, however, implored the federation to move with speed and ensure that the squad can have more than one training sessions per day as that would go a long way in boosting our preparedness,” he added.

In addition, the players will have to be whipped into shape in the shortest time possible seeing as they have been out of action since last year when the league went on break.

The team will be looking to defend their zone five title against the likes if Egypt, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan for an opportunity to play in the Afrobasket and the African Games.