Victoria Crocs Sink Toothless City Oilers

Victoria Crocs defeated the City Oilers 65-52 and put one foot into the playoffs. Chuol Nyuot dropped 25 points and 15 rebounds

Avitus Ngabirano

July 17, 2025

4–5 minutes

City Oilers, National Basketball League, NBL 25, Victoria Crocs

Over the past couple of days, Uganda Rugby fans have been very angry with the Rugby Cranes after that woeful performance against Morocco.

Many have described the performance as pathetic and when you think about the second half City Oilers performance against Victoria Crocs, one wouldn’t be wrong to call it the same.

In the second half alone, City Oilers made 11 turnovers but that wasn’t surprising as all.

What was, was the fact that Victoria made 15 turnovers but the Oilers scored just 3 points from turnovers.

That is clearly a team which did not have teeth. Every time your opponent messes up, more so in a a very important/consequential game, you ought to punish them and they never did.

On the flip side, the Crocs scored 13 points from turnovers, most coming late in the game, and that is one of the ways in which they saw this game through.

The other important statistic is the free throws.

In the second half alone, the City Oilers went to the free throw line 16 times and they missed 9 of those.

The 3-point shots were also crucial in this game.

The Oilers scored 3 of 11 attempts in the second half while Victoria had 3 of 9 but guess what, the Crocs’ shots came from an unlikely source, Chuol Nyuot, the big man.

Finally, this is the statistic that brings out how poor the City Oilers were.

They scored 0 points in the paint from 8 attempts in the third quarter.

Their only field goals in that quarter were 2 shots, all coming from the 3-point line.

In the fourth, they scored just 2 of 12 from the paint.

To put this into perspective, Victoria Crocs made 11 turnovers in the fourth quarter but the Oilers couldn’t even score on fast breaks.

Fayed Baale, Allawi Ssenkubuge missed layups when alone on fast breaks and that alone is enough to show you how unimpressive the team was.

When you think about it keenly, the game was won in the third quarter where Victoria scored 21 points and were efficient in the paint with 7/10.

I don’t know if pathetic is the right word to use to describe the City Oilers second half performance but one thing for sure is, they were lousy.

After that dreadful performance against the JT Jaguars, one would have thought that things were going to be different this time around, and they were but only for a while before that subpar second half display.

Coming into this game, both teams needed wins in order to increase their chances of making the playoffs.

The Victoria Crocs however needed it more because, having lost their previous 2 games, another defeat would have put them further away from the promised land.

For the Oilers, a win in this game would have secured a place for them in the playoffs.

As expected, the game was very tough at the beginning.

Victoria came out strong defensively, closing the driving lanes and the Oilers had to make some adjustments.

We saw the introduction of Okumu Demunu and the Oilers started to attempt from the 3-point line, burying 2 of their 5 attempts.

Victoria scored 8 points from turnovers and 4 second chance points and that is how they stayed afloat in the first period.

By the end of the quarter, the game was tied 14 apiece.

Victoria led by as many as 5 after less than 90 seconds to start the second quarter but they went into slumber mode.

For the next 3 minutes, the Oilers made a 9-0 run to take a 4-point lead.

In that time, the Crocs made 4 turnovers and City Oilers capitalized with 5 points from turnovers.

Chuol Nyuot eventually scored some big 3’s and the quarter ended 32-29, City Oilers in the lead.

The second half performance of the Oilers was disastrous, particularly the third quarter were they scored only 2 field goals, and a total of 7 points.

The Crocs took an 11-point lead in the fourth quarter but it was unlikely that the City Oilers would make a comeback as we haven’t seen many from them this season.

Chuol Nyuot opened the fourth quarter with a triple to make it a 14-point.

To cap the Oilers performance, they made turnovers on their first 2 possessions in the fourth.

That is when it sank for most that there would be no comeback.

In the end, the Victoria Crocs won the game 65-52.

Chuol Nyuot had arguably his best performance of the season with 25 points, 15 rebounds, and 5 3-point shots made.

Match Stats

Victoria Crocs

Chuol Nyuot 25 pts, 15 reb, 2 ast, 2 stl, 1 blk

Cedric Alema 16 pts, 6 reb, 1 ast, 1 blk

Bienfait Lola Minani 9 pts, 2 reb

City Oilers

Edgar Munaba 12 pts, 4 reb