Rivers Hoopers struggled to find their rhythm in the Basketball Africa League (BAL) playoff seeding game against AS Douanes as they lost 63-57 on Saturday in Kigali.
The loss to AS Douanes is the second out of the three meetings between the two sides this season.
Despite Kelvin Amayo scoring the first basket, Hoopers had a six-minute drought and only managed to score nine points in the entire first quarter.
Hoopers came back stronger in the second but were still outscored 15-14, taking a 14-point deficit (23-37) to the locker room.
The third quarter was the team’s worst of all four quarters, as Douanes outscored Hoopers 13-5 to hold a 22-point lead going into the fourth.
”The first three quarters were terrible,” said Rivers Hoopers head coach Ogoh Odaudu.
With the introduction of the home-based players in the fourth quarter, Hoopers shot 29 points and limited their opponent to 13 points. The bench accounted for 31 points of the total points scored by Hoopers in the game.
Odaudu added, ”The last quarter was a good one for us; we got contributions from the bench; we rallied and almost got it, but we lost.”
”It is a learning curve for us; we are not invisible. We need to go back and put in the work.”
The team’s BAL Elevate player, David Ike, scored a game-high 11 points, the only player who finished in double figures. Ike added three rebounds and three blocks in 15 minutes.
Abel Offia scored nine points and five rebounds, while John Wilkins shot eight.
In a game, the starting five had a quiet game from the offensive end of the floor, Peter Olisemeka, who scored just three points in the game, crashed the boards with 12 rebounds and two blocks, while Devine Eke had nine rebounds.
Odaudu commended the home-based players for showing up in the fourth quarter.
”The home-based players had a fantastic last quarter. We have been introducing them gradually from Dakar, and obviously they have stepped up. No team just sits down and watch. They did a good job scouting us well and could tell what we were going to do, and we didn’t have answers to that.”
With 25 seconds left to play, Johnson Anaiye scored a mid-range jumper to cut the deficit to 61-57 which made the Senegalese to call back its starting line-up, but they could do little.
Odaudu continued, ”They (AS Douanes) didn’t know much about them (home-based), and they didn’t know how to play them, and they almost brought us back into it. Kudos to them, and we would see more from them.”
Hoopers made 5/30 from the deep and 10-of-21 from the line and turned the ball over 22 times.
After losing to AS Douanes in the seeding game, the KingsMen will play against US Monastir, who defeated Petro de Luanda earlier in the day.
The game between Rivers Hoopers and US Monastir will be played on Monday, 27 May at the BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda.
