Kenya’s national men’s basketball team, Morans outlasted Tunisia 82-76 in overtime to storm into the semi-finals of the Fiba AfroCan tournament in Bamako, Mali early Thursday morning.
Kenya will now tackle Morocco in the semi-finals on Thursday at the same venue.
Captain Griffin Ligare led the Morans with 22 points after shooting 44.4% from the field, hitting 8-of-18 from the floor, 2-of-8 from 3-point range and 4 of 5 free throws.
But it was the indefatigable Ulinzi Warriors guard Erick Mutoro who ran the Tunisians rugged in the 40:51 minutes he was on the floor. Mutoto poured in 14 points in a 4-of-18 field goal attempts. He scored four or his six free throws in the encounter that had to be decided in overtime. Power forward Tyler Okari, who scored the buzzer-beater that saw Kenya edge out Ivory Coast in the previous round, had a quiet night but managed 14 points – hitting 1-of-4 from beyond the arc, and 6-of-16 from the field.
Coach Cliff owuor’s high basketball acumen is what has seen Kenya floor three Fiba World Cup bound teams the latest being former African champions Tunisia.
And the plan to see off the lanky Tunisians was well hatched by Owuor, who even avoided training at the championships match venue as required by the tournament organiser’s and opted for an outdoor court somewhere in the hideouts of Bamako.
According to Owuor, he opted for a 20 minutes outdoor training at his own convenient time to allow players enough time to rest after their win over Ivory Coast.
Well aware that Okari would be double-teamed after his exploits in the opening games including the buzzer-beater against Ivory Coast, Owuor had to come up with a plan B at a private location to surprise the Tunisians.
MAGIC
And the trick to work on freeing Ligare and Mutoro to stand in for Okari worked well as the two plus Bush Wamukota – 21 points, 8-of-12 from the field – worked magic.
“We also worked on getting our big man Bush Wamukota free in the paint which worked great,” Owuor said.
Owuor says the team knew the it was going to be tough and were consistent despite the few lapses that saw the team lose the grip pushing the game into extra time.
“We also showed resilience with Tyler Okari, our best player. It was a good experience winning differently against one of the most technical teams in the tournament, and as always God again had a huge hand in it,” said Owuor.
Tunisia led through the first and second quarters 20-19, 16-14 for a 36-33 halftime lead but a resurgent Kenya was dominant in the third outscoring their opponents 20-10 with the Tunisians coming from behind to tie the game with a 22-15 score in the fourth quarter.
Morans were in control of overtime, outscoring the former African champions 14-8 for the historic victory.
Mohammed Rassil was Tunisia’s top scorer with 19 points, Jawhar Jawadi managed 18 while Ahmed Diff, Qusaama Chabouh and Youssef Gaddour had six points each.