M: UCU Canons 88-66 KIU Titans
W: UCU Lady Canons 53-33 KIU Rangers
After a close Friday night contest between Our Saviour and Tiger Head Power despite the latter running away with an 11 points victory, UCU Canons hosting KIU Titans was supposed to be an also-ran battle, but it sure didn’t feel that way after the first half.
After a close first half, UCU Canons used a third quarter surge to pin an 88-66 loss to KIU Titans in front of their fans and coach, Nicholas Natuhereza acknowledged the impact of the fans.
“Anytime you are playing at home gives you an advantage. It gives you that little energy and lift when playing in front of your fans and on the ground you are comfortable with. All that gave us the boost” a delighted Natuhereza said after the big win.
UCU’s guard, Yahaya Kalyesubula opened the scoring for the hosts from down town and Norman Blick (10 points) responded from a similar distance for KIU and the visitors kept chasing all evening but inevitably did not catch up again.
“We lost to them in the first round and we wanted to get it right and here we did” Natuhereza said.
Ivan Lumanyika paced UCU’s balanced offense with game high 20 points and 10 rebounds. Joseph Wacha contributed 14 points, Desmond Owili had 12 and playing his second game since returning from injury, Jonathan Egau stepped off the bench to contribute 10 points.
Canons (13-2) played a defense that limited Titans (12-3) to 14 points in the decisive third quarter. The Canons managed to beat KIU’s press and Natuhereza hailed his team’s defending and composure during the press.
”I think our defense was good. In the first round we gave them very many easy points which we did not today” he told Kawowo Sports. “We handled the pressure very well. That press they put on, I think we handled it much better than we did in the first round”
The loss was KIU’s third of the season but second in row having lost to Stanbic Warriors in their previous game. Their coach, Hamza Nyambogo couldn’t hide his disappointed at his charges’ transition defending.
“Our transition defence was not good and that is why you see a 20 plus point difference. All those point were 10-15 trips down the road when we were not stopping the ball” Nyambogo said post game.
“They hit and hurt us on transition and we failed to score” he added.
