{"id":20477,"date":"2021-10-30T15:04:24","date_gmt":"2021-10-30T15:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/?p=20477"},"modified":"2021-10-30T14:46:36","modified_gmt":"2021-10-30T14:46:36","slug":"city-oilers-start-road-to-bal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/city-oilers-start-road-to-bal","title":{"rendered":"City Oilers start Road to BAL"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Uganda. <\/strong><\/span>Five of the 12 players selected by City Oilers head coach Mandy Juruni for the first hurdle of the Road to Basketball Africa League (BAL) know exactly how it feels to be so close yet so far.<\/p>\n

Jimmy Enabu, Tonny Drileba, Ben Komakech, Ivan Muhwezi and James Okello were all part of the team that was left in tears after a failed campaign last time out in Kigali, Rwanda.<\/p>\n

Oilers had finished second in the first round and went into the second phase as one of the favourites to book a ticket to the finals.<\/p>\n

They, however, ended up losing to Ferroviaro de Maputo in the third-place playoff and were sent packing.<\/p>\n

As the Ugandan champions go again, starting with the first round that tips off today in Dar es Salam, Tanzania, confidence is high in the squad.<\/p>\n

Oilers need to finish as one of the two top sides from their group that features opposition from Malawi, Tanzania and Burundi.<\/p>\n

Brave Hearts (Malawi), Kurasani Heat (Tanzania) and New Stars (Burundi) are the other teams in Group E and Oilers have three days to face all and progress to the next round or forget about BAL.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a more experienced team now with players who played there last time,\u201d Juruni told Daily Monitor as the team departed for Tanzania yesterday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are strong both with the bigs and guards. Our bigs are versatile. They can play in and out,\u201d Juruni added.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s experience will be complemented by the youth in the squad as well as the additions scouted outside the organisation.<\/p>\n

Luak Ruai and John Dombo are the two new kids on the block while Titus Odeke has a bit of experience from his travels with the Silverbacks. John Balwigaire and Jerry Namdi Okwonko are the major additions to the team and Juruni is confident they will deliver. Guard Enabu, who captained the team that failed at the last hurdle in 2019, understands what\u2019s at stake.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve always assembled good teams to compete, we\u2019ve trained well so our performance at the tournament is what we can use to gauge how good we are now compared to before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The 2019 first round was also held in Tanzania and Oilers came second behind Rwanda\u2019s Patriots despite serious injuries to Steven Omony and Francis Azolibe.<\/p>\n

The two injuries left Juruni and Oilers with just Okello and Landry Ndikumana as the bigs in the final game against Patriots.<\/p>\n

Of the additions made to the team, Enabu is happy with what he has seen in training and expects a lot of each player.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey play both ends of the ball, and can stretch the floor. We now have more scoring options.\u201d<\/p>\n

The top two teams from the tournament will progress to the Elite 16 from which six qualify to join champions of Angola, Egypt, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Tunisia.<\/p>\n

Twelve teams will compete in the finals.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Uganda<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Uganda. Five of the 12 players selected by City Oilers head coach Mandy Juruni for the first hurdle of the Road to Basketball Africa League (BAL) know exactly how it feels to be so close yet so far. Jimmy Enabu, Tonny Drileba, Ben Komakech, Ivan Muhwezi and James Okello were all part of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":20476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,17],"tags":[233,240,234],"class_list":["post-20477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-sport","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-uganda","tag-uganda"],"yoast_head":"\nCity Oilers start Road to BAL - Uganda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Five of the 12 players selected by City Oilers head coach Mandy Juruni for the first hurdle of the Road to Basketball Af ...\" \/>\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\/uganda\/all-news\/city-oilers-start-road-to-bal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"City Oilers start Road to BAL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Five of the 12 players selected by City Oilers head coach Mandy Juruni for the first hurdle of the Road to Basketball Af ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/city-oilers-start-road-to-bal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Uganda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-10-30T15:04:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/10\/img-617d5ab508efd.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"480\" \/>\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\/uganda\/all-news\/city-oilers-start-road-to-bal#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/city-oilers-start-road-to-bal\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"City Oilers start Road to BAL\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-10-30T15:04:24+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/city-oilers-start-road-to-bal\"},\"wordCount\":503,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/city-oilers-start-road-to-bal#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/10\/img-617d5ab508efd.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Uganda\",\"uganda\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/city-oilers-start-road-to-bal#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/city-oilers-start-road-to-bal\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/city-oilers-start-road-to-bal\",\"name\":\"City Oilers start Road to BAL - 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