Early exit for CSK in FIBA Zone V tourney

Today Men Savio (Tz) vs City Oilers (Uga) 2pmDynamo (Bur) vs Ulinzi (Ken) 4pmCSK (Rwa) vs NFEL (S. Sud) 6pmGezira (Egy) vs Tiger (Uga) 8pm Women Berco (Bur) vs APR (Rwa) 12pmDon Bosco (Tz) vs Ubumwe (Rwa) 2pmKCCA (Uga) vs USIU (Ken) 4pm Wednesday CSK 64-83 KPA After losing their third game in a row against Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) on Wednesday, Cercle Sportif de Kigali (CSK) take on debutants NFEL of South Sudan in their final group game of the ongoing FIBA Africa Zone Five Club Championships in Kigali. Bob Ngoga’s CSK were overwhelmed by last year’s beaten finalists KPA 83-64 to exit the regional tournament at the group stage following earlier defeats to Egypt’s Gezira 93-47 on Tuesday and 70-64 against Tiger Head Power of Uganda on Monday. In yesterday’s game, former Rwanda international forward Mike Buzangu scored the game high 36 points but his one-man effort was not enough to save the Rugunga-based club from early exit. CSK will now play classification play-offs, beginning Friday. Timothy Odombi scored 16 points while Edward Letting and Chan Akaba added 12 and 11 points respectively for KPA, who lost to Burundi’s Urunani in last year’s final in Mombasa. Drawn in Pool B alongside NFEL, KPA, Tiger and Gezira, CSK have once again failed to prove they belong to the elite club among the regional giants. Speaking to Times Sport in a post-match interview, Ngoga blamed his team’s poor performance and early exit on inexperience and poor rebounding. “I am disappointed, this is not how we wanted to represent the country,” he said at the courtside at Amahoro indoor stadium, adding that, “Poor rebounding has been our major weakness in all the three games we have played so far.” Both Gezira and Tiger Head Power already progressed to the last four and face off this evening (at 8pm), to find who qualifies as group leaders. In women’s competition, title hopefuls Berco Stars of Burundi had to sweat hard for a tightly contested 73-70 narrow victory over defending champions USIU of Kenya to go top of the table with maximum 8 points from four games. Running from October 4 to 11 in Kigali, this year’s edition attracted a total of 16 teams, ten men’s and six female teams contesting for three tickets (2 in men, one women’s) of FIBA Africa Club Championships to be staged in Angola later this year. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

Sports

Early exit for CSK in FIBA Zone V tourney