Africa-Press – South-Sudan. South Sudan on Friday became the first team to advance to the Second Round of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 African Qualifiers after beating hosts Rwanda 73-63 in Kigali.
Bul Kuol paced the South Sudanese offence with a 16 points, Nuni Omot added 13 and Kuany Ngor Kuany contributed 15 points in South Sudan’s fourth straight win in the tournament.
Although South Sudan led for most of the game, which allowed them to cruise to a 20-point at some point, Rwanda did everything they possibly could to cut the deficit later in the fourth quarter, but the damage was already done.
South Sudan knew that making Kendall Gray’s life difficult on both ends of the floor would prevent Rwanda from executing their game plan, and that strategy paid off as Gray finished with just 7 points and 6 rebounds in 34:17 minutes on the floor.
Alex Mpoyo led the way for Rwanda with 15 points, but Deng Acuoth’s 4 points and 15 rebounds proved valuable for the in the winning cause.
While South Sudan moved on to the 12-nation Second Round of the African Qualifiers, Rwanda dropped to 0-4, and saw their chances of contending for a place in the next round seriously affected.
For a World Cup African Qualifiers debutant making it to the decisive Second Rwanda represents a massive achievement for South Sudan.
This is a team that four years ago was unknown to many, but has now become one of the hottest in African basketball landscape with real chances of competing for one of the five tickets available for African countries for next year’s World Cup in Indonesia, Japan and Philippines.
South Sudan take on Tunisia next before going up against Cameroon in their last game in Group B. Rwanda play Cameroon and Tunisia to conclude their campaign in Window 3 of the African Qualifiers.
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