Egypt defeat Kenya, face Uganda in final

Action between Kenya and Egypt during the 2023 FIBA Afrobasket qualifiers at the MTN Indoor Stadium in Lugogo | Courtesy photo

AFROBASKET ZONE V Egypt defeat Kenya, face Uganda in final

Ndyamuhaki J Emanzi 18:00 - 18.02.2023

The Gazelles needed a win for Kenya or a blowout victory for the Pharaohs to progress to the final.

The Uganda Gazelles will have to repeat Wednesday night heroics when they face Egypt, again on Sunday.

This time round, however, the winner will be picking a direct ticket to the 2023 Fiba AfroBasket in Kigali, Rwanda.

This was confirmed Saturday evening after Egypt defeated Kenya 82-57 to set up another meeting with the hosts.

The Gazelles needed a win for Kenya or a blowout victory for the Pharaohs to progress to the final.

Egypt blew away the defending champions with relative ease to dump them out of contention.

That 61-53 loss to Kenya in the opening game is what had Uganda on the calculators.

The team bounced back for an impressive 86-85 win over Egypt and another win over South Sudan and end the round robin format of play second.

Egypt led 10-06 with 6.35 on the clock to force the Kenyans into a timeout.

Madina picked two quick fouls but the Kenyan bench chose to keep her on until she got her third.

Raneem Elgedaway conducted a scoring clinic early, recording 14 of Egypt’s 21 as the quarter ended 21-16.

The Pharaohs put pressure on the ball to limit Kenya’s transition and paid off.

And when the lead stretched to double digits (34-23) midway through the second frame, George Mayienga needed another timeout to iron out things.

Egypt were dominating the inside with Okot glued to the bench on three fouls.

The lead kept growing for Egypt as Lionesses collapsed late in the quarter.

Egypt created a 21-point difference (48-27) and maintained it (50-29) going into the halftime break.

Elgedaway and Soraiah Deghady had already scored 20 and 12 points respectively by the time the halftime buzzer sounded.

Kenya trailed by 25 points after three quarters and needed to cut that lead to 15 or below to progress ahead of Uganda.

Back to back buckets to start the fourth quarter saw Kenya cut the deficit to 18 points (64-46) and force a timeout.

Elgedaway ended the game with a double-double of 23 points and 11 rebounds for Egypt.

Nadine Mohamed contributed 13 points while Deghady added 12.

Mercy Wanyama, Okot and Rose Ouma led Kenya with 13, 10 and 11 points respectively.

The loss will now see Kenya face South Sudan in the bronze game on Sunday.

Fiba Women’s Zone V AfroBasket Qualifiers

Result

Egypt 82-57 Kenya