{"id":4587,"date":"2021-02-18T20:04:49","date_gmt":"2021-02-18T20:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/?p=4587"},"modified":"2021-02-18T17:59:02","modified_gmt":"2021-02-18T17:59:02","slug":"afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks","title":{"rendered":"Afrobasket beckons for Silverbacks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a> &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\">Uganda<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>Uganda has never beaten Egypt. If that were to change today in Monastir, Tunisia, Silverbacks will be one of the 16 teams at the Fiba Afrobasket this August in Kigali, Rwanda.<\/p>\n<p>That is the best case scenario. It\u2019s also a testament of how well the national basketball team has performed during the qualifiers whose first window was held last November.<\/p>\n<p>The Silverbacks won two out of three to move within one victory of a third successive appearance at the Fiba Afrobasket. Today\u2019s opener against Egypt is the first of three games over the next four days.<\/p>\n<p>Cape Verde and Morocco are the other teams in group E. The task remains simple \u2013 win one \u2013 just one. Of course no one is getting complacent. Silverbacks want to win every game.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, with everyone pulling in the same direction, the theme from the training camp ahead has been about how to improve the team\u2019s defence having conceded 284 points, the highest of all the 20 teams.<\/p>\n<p>That focus on defence will be greatly tested against Egypt who beat Uganda 96-77 in the previous qualification window.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur defence is something that we need to do and the coach is going to make sure we get it done. Now it\u2019s our job to apply everything he implemented,\u201d noted Ishmail Wainright who returns to the team having starred with a tournament best 21.3 points per game in Alexandria, Egypt last November.<\/p>\n<p>The SIG Strasbourg small forward is again joined by the other foreign based players in Eric Rwahwire, Robinson Opong, John Deng Geu and Arthur Kaluma.<\/p>\n<p>Deng Geu and Kaluma were the last to join the Silverbacks camp whose chemistry has often been heralded by players and management alike.\u201cI feel amazing and blessed. Being with a group guys that brought me in as a brother. Being adopted feels amazing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHaving guys like Mike (Schmitz), coach George (Galanapolous), the captain Jimmy (Enabu), Tony (Drileba) and Titus (Lual). They helped me out like I\u2019m helping them out,\u201d he added.The collective effort has been important.<\/p>\n<p>During the first window, Opong and Enabu averaged 19 and 17.7 points respectively. To that, Wainwright added 5.7 assists and Enabu 5 assists per game.<\/p>\n<p>Wainwright also led the team with 8.3 rebounds. Deng Geu had eight boards per game. Aware of these details, Kaluma, Ceasar Kizito and Fayed Bbaale have been added to offer variatiom.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe think he\u2019ll help us a lot on the rebounds. All the three games that we played we lost rebounds by double digits,\u201d assistant coach Mandy Juruni said of the 6ft 7i Kaluma.\u201cIt\u2019s very hard at that level not to be a good rebounding team,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p><b>essenono@ug.nationmedia.com<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Uganda. Uganda has never beaten Egypt. If that were to change today in Monastir, Tunisia, Silverbacks will be one of the 16 teams at the Fiba Afrobasket this August in Kigali, Rwanda. That is the best case scenario. It\u2019s also a testament of how well the national basketball team has performed during the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":4586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,17],"tags":[233,240,234],"class_list":["post-4587","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":"<!-- 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>Afrobasket beckons for Silverbacks - Uganda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Uganda has never beaten Egypt. If that were to change today in Monastir, Tunisia, Silverbacks will be one of the 16 team ...\" \/>\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\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Afrobasket beckons for Silverbacks\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Uganda has never beaten Egypt. If that were to change today in Monastir, Tunisia, Silverbacks will be one of the 16 team ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks\" \/>\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=\"2021-02-18T20:04:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/02\/img-602eaacd5179a.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\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Afrobasket beckons for Silverbacks\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-02-18T20:04:49+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks\"},\"wordCount\":452,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/02\/img-602eaacd5179a.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\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks\",\"name\":\"Afrobasket beckons for Silverbacks - Uganda\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/02\/img-602eaacd5179a.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-02-18T20:04:49+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"description\":\"Uganda has never beaten Egypt. If that were to change today in Monastir, Tunisia, Silverbacks will be one of the 16 team ...\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/02\/img-602eaacd5179a.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/02\/img-602eaacd5179a.jpg\",\"width\":720,\"height\":480,\"caption\":\"Afrobasket beckons for Silverbacks\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Afrobasket beckons for Silverbacks\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/\",\"name\":\"Uganda\",\"description\":\"Just another Africa News Agency Sites site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\",\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7417380fa9e23b5c57fdbfdaf3fdf92ee478f759a084addda5faa3732853e74a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7417380fa9e23b5c57fdbfdaf3fdf92ee478f759a084addda5faa3732853e74a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"cfeditoren\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Afrobasket beckons for Silverbacks - Uganda","description":"Uganda has never beaten Egypt. If that were to change today in Monastir, Tunisia, Silverbacks will be one of the 16 team ...","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Afrobasket beckons for Silverbacks","og_description":"Uganda has never beaten Egypt. If that were to change today in Monastir, Tunisia, Silverbacks will be one of the 16 team ...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks","og_site_name":"Uganda","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa","article_published_time":"2021-02-18T20:04:49+00:00","og_image":[{"width":720,"height":480,"url":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/02\/img-602eaacd5179a.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"cfeditoren","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"cfeditoren","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks"},"author":{"name":"cfeditoren","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb"},"headline":"Afrobasket beckons for Silverbacks","datePublished":"2021-02-18T20:04:49+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks"},"wordCount":452,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/02\/img-602eaacd5179a.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\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks","url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks","name":"Afrobasket beckons for Silverbacks - Uganda","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/02\/img-602eaacd5179a.jpg","datePublished":"2021-02-18T20:04:49+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb"},"description":"Uganda has never beaten Egypt. If that were to change today in Monastir, Tunisia, Silverbacks will be one of the 16 team ...","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/02\/img-602eaacd5179a.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/02\/img-602eaacd5179a.jpg","width":720,"height":480,"caption":"Afrobasket beckons for Silverbacks"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/afrobasket-beckons-for-silverbacks#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Afrobasket beckons for Silverbacks"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/","name":"Uganda","description":"Just another Africa News Agency Sites site","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb","name":"cfeditoren","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7417380fa9e23b5c57fdbfdaf3fdf92ee478f759a084addda5faa3732853e74a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7417380fa9e23b5c57fdbfdaf3fdf92ee478f759a084addda5faa3732853e74a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"cfeditoren"}}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}