How Okari carried Kenya to Afrocan quarters

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Kenya's Tyler Okari dribbles the ball during their 2019 African Games basketball qualifier match against Tanzania at Lugogo Sports Complex in Kampala on June 30, 2019. Kenya won 112-59. PHOTO | PHILIP ONYANGO |

By PHILIP ONYANGO
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Tyler Okari’s buzzer-beater was all the Kenya men basketball team needed to beat Ivory Coast 85-83 to book their first ever ticket to the quarter finals of the Africa Cup of Nations basketball tournament currently ongoing in Bamako, Mali.
And he did it in style. With only 17 seconds left on the clock and the teams tied at 83-83, Kenya coach Cliff Owuor called a time out which helped the team advance the ball to the last quarter of the game.
Kenya captain Griffin Ligare inbounded the ball to Okari who shook off his marker Amboudou Kabirou, took a dribble to the left, then a cross over to the right and pulled up a jumper just at the edge of the arc, which dropped with the buzzer ending the game.
“I called a time-out and Okari told me he wanted to win us the game, so I drew a play that isolated him from the rest and indeed he won it for us on the stroke of time,” Owuor told Nation Sport on phone after the match.
Owuor said Ivory Coast played very well and made life difficult for his charges especially in the first three quarters.
“Ivory Coast played very well, they shot the ball better than all the games they have played so we had lots of problems guarding them, they got a lot of things right. We thank God we secured the win in a stylish manner through Tyler,” added Owuor.
Power forward Ronnie Gundo – who has been underwhelming in Bamako – was outstanding for once with Kenya’s inside presence being felt. Eric Mutoro’s energy also kept the team going.
“Victor Odendo did good when he came in as a substitute and Griffin Ligare as usual, our silent killer was at it. The key thing we did our best to stay focused despite much of our stuff not working well, discipline and passion saw us stay consistent until they crumbled,” said Owuor.
Ivory Coast led 23-20 in the first quarter but Kenya bounced back to take the second quarter 23-21 to trail 43-44 at the break. The West Africans took the third quarter 18-17 before Kenya exploded in the fourth with a 25-20 score for the historic win.
Okari once again led the scorecard with 24 points, Mutoro had 18 while Bush Wamukota and Ligare scored eight and seven points respectively.
Romeo Enan and Kouadio Michael contributed 20 points apiece for Ivory Coast while Amboudou Kadirou and Aristide Otto had 13 and 10 respectively.
Other pre-quarter final matches saw Algeria beat Nigeria 84-80, Morocco beat Guinea 86-52, while Tchad saw off Egypt 98-95.
Kenya will face Tunisia in the quarters on Wednesday night. Other quarter-final matches are Angola v Algeria, DR Congo v Tchad and Mali v Morocco.

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