{"id":118204,"date":"2025-12-28T10:31:33","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T10:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/all-news\/ugb-sign-south-african-star-sibonyine-on-one-year-deal"},"modified":"2025-12-28T10:42:55","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T10:42:55","slug":"ugb-sign-south-african-star-sibonyine-on-one-year-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/ugb-sign-south-african-star-sibonyine-on-one-year-deal","title":{"rendered":"UGB sign South African star Sibonyine on one-year deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Rwanda. <\/strong><\/span>United Generation Basketball (UGB) have announced the signing of South African power forward Sandile Sibonyine ahead of the 2026 season.<\/p>\n<p>The 27-year-old, who previously featured for Made by Basketball (MBB) during the 2025 Basketball Africa League (BAL), has joined the club on a one-year deal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe is going to add value to our squad, which has not changed much. Last season was bright for us despite not reaching our ultimate goal,\u201d UGB vice-president Kenny Mugarura told Times Sport.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are coming back to correct those shortcomings, and bringing in Sibonyine strengthens the journey we started.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Standing at 2.15 metres, Sibonyine is expected to bolster UGB, who finished in the top four of the 2025 Rwanda Basketball League.<\/p>\n<p>He made his BAL debut in the 2022 season, averaging 5.3 points and 8.3 rebounds per game during his rookie campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Sibonyine brings significant BAL experience, having been one of MBB\u2019s key players despite the South African side missing out on a place in the conference finals, which were held on home soil. He also holds the BAL single-game rebounding record, having pulled down 25 rebounds in one match.<\/p>\n<p>In 2024, he joined Burundian giants Urunani in the Burundian Basketball Championship. During his stint with the club, he set a league rebounding record with 23 rebounds against Remesha.<\/p>\n<p>Sibonyine went on to win the championship with Urunani following a seven-game finals victory over Dynamo and was named the league\u2019s Defensive Player of the Year.<\/p>\n<p>Sibonyine is expected to link up with UGB for pre-season training in early January 2026.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Rwanda<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Rwanda. United Generation Basketball (UGB) have announced the signing of South African power forward Sandile Sibonyine ahead of the 2026 season. The 27-year-old, who previously featured for Made by Basketball (MBB) during the 2025 Basketball Africa League (BAL), has joined the club on a one-year deal. \u201cHe is going to add value to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":118203,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,18],"tags":[3502,758,5013,4704],"class_list":["post-118204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-bal","tag-rwanda","tag-rwanda-basketball-league","tag-ugb"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>UGB sign South African star Sibonyine on one-year deal - Rwanda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"United Generation Basketball (UGB) have announced the signing of South African power forward Sandile Sibonyine ahead of ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/ugb-sign-south-african-star-sibonyine-on-one-year-deal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UGB sign South African star Sibonyine on one-year deal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"United Generation Basketball (UGB) have announced the signing of South African power forward Sandile Sibonyine ahead of ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/ugb-sign-south-african-star-sibonyine-on-one-year-deal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rwanda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-12-28T10:31:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-28T10:42:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sites\/23\/2025\/12\/sm_1766905947.751982.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"570\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/ugb-sign-south-african-star-sibonyine-on-one-year-deal#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/ugb-sign-south-african-star-sibonyine-on-one-year-deal\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"UGB sign South African star Sibonyine on one-year deal\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-12-28T10:31:33+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-12-28T10:42:55+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/ugb-sign-south-african-star-sibonyine-on-one-year-deal\"},\"wordCount\":268,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/ugb-sign-south-african-star-sibonyine-on-one-year-deal#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sites\/23\/2025\/12\/sm_1766905947.751982.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"BAL\",\"Rwanda\",\"Rwanda Basketball league\",\"UGB\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/ugb-sign-south-african-star-sibonyine-on-one-year-deal#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/ugb-sign-south-african-star-sibonyine-on-one-year-deal\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/ugb-sign-south-african-star-sibonyine-on-one-year-deal\",\"name\":\"UGB sign South African star Sibonyine on one-year deal - 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