City Thunder bow out of BAL in Rwanda with heads held high

Nairobi City Thunder exited the Basketball Africa League (BAL) with pride, despite losing 74-77 to hosts APR of Rwanda in their last game at the BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda.

Thunder struck hard and won the first quarter 19-17, before extending the lead with a 26-18 victory in the second quarter to take a 45-35 lead into the break.

But the home team returned from the break with guns-blazing, winning the third quarter 20-16 before sealing the comeback with a 22-13 surge in the last quarter to emerge victorious with a 77-74 score.

Albert Onyango Odero was in class of his own as he dropped 29 points for Thunder, with Uchenna Iroegbu and William Sidney Davis adding 16 and 14 points respectively,

Aliou Diarra, Youssoupha Ndoye and Obadiah Noel led Rwanda’s charge with a combined 56 points.

Thunder only managed to get one win from their six matches, defeating MBB of South Africa 85-76 in the return match on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Libya’s Al Ahli (Libya) edged MBB (South Africa) 102-73 in their final pool match to qualify for the playoffs in South Africa with a perfect record, alongside APR who finished second in the group.

Al Ahli and APR will join BAL debutants Al Ittihad (Egypt) and Kriol Star (Cape Verde), last year’s semi-finalist Rivers Hoopers (Nigeria), 2022 BAL champions US Monastir (Tunisia), defending champions Petro de Luanda (Angola), and FUS Rabat (Morocco) when the playoffs kick off at SunBet Arena in Pretoria from June 6-14.