- Nkumba Marines 53-77 KIU Titans
KIU Titans shook off a sloppy first half to defeat Nkumba Marines 77-53 in the National Basketball League on Sunday evening at YMCA.
Nkumba started the game with purpose fighting for every ball and edged the opening quarter 15-14 before the scores switched and the game was tied at 29 at halftime.
The two sides matched shot for shot in the third quarter until KIU resorted to a full court press to force a few turnovers and out scored their opponents 23-16.
“It’s sometimes difficult to play against a team without structure,” said KIU coach Hamza Nyambogo. “We play a 1-3-1 zone defense but our bigs were not effective today so we had to go small with guys who have energy to press and you could see they (Nkumba) were out of legs in the fourth quarter” he added.
Nyambogo started the third quarter with a small lineup of Collin Kasujja, Chris Omanye, Sudi Ulanga, Sam Agutu and Geoffrey Soro who switched places with Kazungu for most of the second half and it paid off.
With Nkumba out of legs, Titans took full advantage from the turnovers with Kasujja getting a lot of easy stuff on breakaways for 15 points and also handed out 6 assists off the bench. Ulanga scored game high 17 points off the bench and Michael Bwanga chipped in with 11.
Malvin Midaki who played much of the second half with a troubling knee matched game high 17 points to lead Mkumba. Brian Sivachi had 10 points and 9 rebounds.