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Rwanda 49-67 Mali

The Under-18 national basketball team started its Group B campaign at the 2022 FIBA U-18 African Championship on a low note after losing to Mali 49-67 on Thursday evening at Palais des Sports Mahamasina in Antananarivo, Madagascar.

The team lost the first three quarters of the game 11-16, 14-22 and 8-16, but fought back to win the last 16-13, but this was obviously not enough as the game ended 67-49 in favour of the West Africans.

Captain Sano Rutatika grabbed 13 points and 3 rebounds, while Ghislain Nubaha got 8 points and 9 rebounds.

For Mali, Adama Traore was the starman as he scored a game high 24 points.

Rwanda’s next game will be against Guinea on Saturday, August 6.

The team is in Group B alongside Mali, Egypt, Guinea and Angola.

The tournament will undergo a group phase, with teams from Groups A and B playing in a round-robin format.

After this, one team from Group B will be eliminated and the remaining contenders will move to the knock-out phase and the quarter-finals.

The Quarter-finals are scheduled for Friday August 12, followed by semi-finals on August 13.

The final and classification games are scheduled for August 14.

The flagship event for U-18 was to be held with 10 teams originally, but Tanzania did not show up.

Tanzania was later replaced by Nigeria. Unfortunately, the latter did not turn up either.