Nairobi City Thunder, the current Morans main production-line

Eight players from the club have been called up in the 30-man provisional squad of the Morans ahead of the 2025 FIBA AfroBasket Qualifiers and the national women’s 3*3 team head coach Evelyn Kedogo is not surprised saying Thunder has one of the best structures hence their recent upturn in form.

“I think those are the best players Kenya has at the moment. It’s not about Thunder dominating the squad but about the best players. All of them just came together to form the current Thunder team but you can see players are evenly distributed and they are the best we have in the country so they are there by merits. We don’t want to take anything from them as it’s about the work they put in. Remember you reap what you sow,” Kedogo said.

The eight are Griffin Ligare, Dismas Mbaka, Ariel Ortega, Ariel Okal formerly KPA, Faheem Juma, Kennedy Wachira, Fidel Okoth, Olang Derrick.

The Nairobi based team, who are unbeaten in the current KBF campaign, top the regular league on 22 points after 11 matches and are on track to end KPA’s dominance after placing fifth last season.

Storms head coach Abel Nson believes their opponents are on the right track adding that all the named players deserved the national team call ups.

“It’s very normal. It’s just that Thunder recruited the best players from different teams and all those players have been perennial Morans. It’s a wrong statement to claim that Thunder has many players in the national team because those players have already featured for the national side previously. No one in that list from Thunder who is a new Moran,” Nson said.

The Morans began their training on Sunday ahead of the 2025 FIBA AfroBasket Qualifiers set to be played next month at Nyayo Gymnasium in Nairobi.

On his part, Thunder head coach Brad Ibs admitted it was an honour having majority of his players selected adding that credit goes to the Twende Sports who rebranded Thunder by signing the best and talented players in the country.

"My job as coach of Thunder is to keep the players getting better as individuals but most importantly to play for each other. We look forward to continuing to try to blend such a group of high level players at Thunder.”