NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 5 – Ulinzi Warriors will take on Nairobi City Thunder, as the Kenya Basketball Federation (KBF) Men’s Premier League second leg rolls on at the Nyayo Gymnasium Friday night, with the military side looking to shoot down Thunder’s unbeaten run so far.
After 17 matches, moneybags Thunder are unbeaten in the regular season and the Warriors, who are fifth in the log, will look to become the first team to break their run.
“I believe we can do it,” Warriors head coach Bernard Mufutu told Capital Sports.
A confident Mufutu adds; “I think we are in a good way in terms of how we have prepared and what we have worked on in our game. If everyone puts in their best, we will beat them.”
Equity Dumas were the only team to run Thunder close when they lost by three points two weeks ago. Ulinzi themselves would have run the hugely talented team close when they met in the first leg, but a second half collapse saw them suffer a 66-42 defeat.
Mufutu says they have analyzed what they did wrong in the first leg, and will be keen to make improvements.
“We didn’t read the changes in the game well in the first leg and we also have worked on improving our rebounding. We also want to have a good command of our defending, which was a concern when we played in the first leg. We didn’t communicate well especially in picking our men,” the tactician said.
The Warriors come into the game off a boosting victory over KPA in Mombasa, and the coach believes that victory, which came hot on the heels of back to back defeats against Strathmore and Absa, will boost them when they face the highly fancied Thunder.
“It really motivated us a lot and put us into a good confidence mood. We now want to pick up from there. There are things we did well and want to keep doing and we also have worked in training to address areas we felt were not at par with the demands of the game,” says the coach.
Warriors have been boosted with the return of influential shooting guard Elisha Odhiambo, who missed the last three games as he was away on national duty at the Africa Games. Point guard Tiberias Menya, who returned in phases against KPA, is also fully fit.
Warriors are spoilt for choice with the plethora of talent at their disposal, but they will once again heavily rely on the fast-handed Albert Odero to run the show against a physically endowed Ulinzi side.
Odero, who joined Thunder in the second leg, has been an influential figure for them and was quite important in helping them pull off tight spaces against Equity.
In other men’s Premier League fixtures lined up for this weekend, Strathmore University face NBK Phoenix in the early tip off Friday evening at Nyayo while on Saturday, USIU Tigers will be on home court against Strathmore and Kenyatta University face Africa Nazarene University (ANU), all matches at USIU.
At the Nyayo Stadium, another epic encounter awaits as Equity Dumas face off with wounded KPA.
On Sunday, Anu play Ulinzi, while Strathmore take on UoN Terror in the late kick off, both games at Nyayo.
