{"id":38768,"date":"2022-10-15T17:34:07","date_gmt":"2022-10-15T17:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/oilers-win-eighth-nbl-championship-in-eight-years"},"modified":"2022-10-15T17:47:45","modified_gmt":"2022-10-15T17:47:45","slug":"oilers-win-eighth-nbl-championship-in-eight-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/oilers-win-eighth-nbl-championship-in-eight-years","title":{"rendered":"Oilers win eighth NBL Championship in eight years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Uganda. <\/strong><\/span>The City Oilers cemented their place as the greatest basketball dynasty in the land with Friday\u2019s 66-64 Game Seven win over the Namuwongo Blazers sealing their eighth Championship in eight seasons.<\/p>\n<p>The 4-3 Finals series win left the Oilers heads and shoulders above the rest of the field with relegated Falcons as the closest on six championships.<\/p>\n<p>Francis Azolibe led the way for the champions in Game Seven with his 24 points and 12 rebounds to claim his second ring and must have been in the MVP conversation.<\/p>\n<p>His teammate James Okello was named MVP despite averaging nine points and nine rebounds compared to the Nigerian\u2019s 13 points and seven rebounds.<\/p>\n<p>All that didn\u2019t matter in the end. The Oilers were out to defend their title and they did it, hard as it might have been.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI dedicate this award to the whole team. This has been all about the team and we had to dig deep,\u201d Okello told Sunday Monitor after Friday night\u2019s action.<\/p>\n<p>It has been a tough for the Oilers but especially for the Okello. The big man lost his mother in the early stages of the season and when the team travelled for burial, they got involved in an accident on their way back.<\/p>\n<p>The championship is one Okello considers as his best.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis year has been the best championship ever if I\u2019m to celebrate. Losing my mum, team getting involved in an accident, all that shows that it\u2019s been a tough year for me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI really have to celebrate this one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><b>Tough run<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Game Seven came down to nerves and Mandy Juruni\u2019s side the team with the composure and execution when the stakes were high down the stretch.<\/p>\n<p>Ben Komakech sank two free throws with three minutes and 56 seconds left on the clock in the fourth quarter to give Oilers a 62-61 lead. There was no coming back from that by the Blazers who had the three-point shot elude them at the final stretch.<\/p>\n<p>Okello and Tonny Drileba had struggled all game but made their free throws with both teams in foul trouble to deliver the eighth championship.<\/p>\n<p>When Jimmy Enabu fouled David Deng from the perimeter with the clock running down, Oilers had a four-point lead with 0.6 separating them from another championship.<\/p>\n<p>Deng made the first two free throws and intentionally missed the last shot to give his side the chance to rebound and put back to force overtime but Paul Odong\u2019s shot drew the iron and went out as the buzzer signalled Oilers\u2019 continued dominance and Blazers\u2019 misery.<\/p>\n<p>Azolibe had opened the scoring by connecting with Okello\u2019s alley-oop for a monster dunk but Blazers responded with an 10-0 run to lead 10-2.<\/p>\n<p>Oilers led 21-19 after the first quarter and 38-35. Blazers started the third frame with purpose and took it 20-10 to lead 55-48 going into the final 10 minutes of the season.<\/p>\n<p>That is when the Oilers\u2019 pedigree came to the fore. Saidi Amisi fouled out midway through the quarter while both Ariel Okall and Daniel Monoja were on four fouls. The Blazers were in foul trouble and oilers capitalised to seal the victory.<\/p>\n<p><b>Eight for UCU<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The UCU Lady Canons completed their come back from a 1-3 hole to win the series 4-3 and lift title number eight. Millicent Otieno shot six of 13 from downtown on her way to a game high 28 points as the Lady Canons beat JKL Lady Dolphins 75-67 before a packed Lugogo Indoor Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>MVP Rose Akon gathered 29 rebounds to go with her 22 points to cement her place as the best player in the league. Hope Akello and Ritah Imanishimwe had 19 points each but these were not enough for the Lady Dolphins to complete a three-peat.<\/p>\n<p><b>National Basketball League<\/b><br \/>\n<b>Game Seven results<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Women: JKL 67-75 Lady Canons (UCU win 4-3)<\/p>\n<p>Men: Nam Blazers 64-66 City Oilers (Oilers win 4-3)<\/p>\n<p><b>Most Valuable Players (MVPs) <\/b><\/p>\n<p>Women: Rose Akon (UCU Lady Canons)<\/p>\n<p>Men: James Okello (City Oilers)<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\">Uganda<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Uganda. The City Oilers cemented their place as the greatest basketball dynasty in the land with Friday\u2019s 66-64 Game Seven win over the Namuwongo Blazers sealing their eighth Championship in eight seasons. The 4-3 Finals series win left the Oilers heads and shoulders above the rest of the field with relegated Falcons as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":38767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17],"tags":[233,240,234],"class_list":["post-38768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-uganda","tag-uganda"],"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>Oilers win eighth NBL Championship in eight years - Uganda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The City Oilers cemented their place as the greatest basketball dynasty in the land with Friday\u2019s 66-64 Game Seven win o ...\" \/>\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\/oilers-win-eighth-nbl-championship-in-eight-years\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Oilers win eighth NBL Championship in eight years\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The City Oilers cemented their place as the greatest basketball dynasty in the land with Friday\u2019s 66-64 Game Seven win o ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/oilers-win-eighth-nbl-championship-in-eight-years\" \/>\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=\"2022-10-15T17:34:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-10-15T17:47:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2022\/10\/postQueueImg_7-634af22507033.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1728\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1151\" \/>\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=\"3 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\/oilers-win-eighth-nbl-championship-in-eight-years#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/oilers-win-eighth-nbl-championship-in-eight-years\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Oilers win eighth NBL Championship in eight years\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-10-15T17:34:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-10-15T17:47:45+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/oilers-win-eighth-nbl-championship-in-eight-years\"},\"wordCount\":683,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/oilers-win-eighth-nbl-championship-in-eight-years#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2022\/10\/postQueueImg_7-634af22507033.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Uganda\",\"uganda\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/oilers-win-eighth-nbl-championship-in-eight-years#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/oilers-win-eighth-nbl-championship-in-eight-years\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/oilers-win-eighth-nbl-championship-in-eight-years\",\"name\":\"Oilers win eighth NBL Championship in eight years - 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