The U16 Silverbacks started their campaign on a low after falling to Cameroon 50-57 on Tuesday 2nd.

After successful friendly games, there was a lot of optimism in the boys and this first game was always going to be very crucial.

The boys fought in this game more so in the second half and one could argue that had they scored all their free throws and made some of those shots that went in and out, perhaps this would have been a different story.

It was a poor start to the game for Uganda offensively. They did not score in over 4 minutes but they also held down their fort and limited Cameroon to just 7 points in over 7 minutes.

Nolan Ngangmeni scored 7 valuable points for Cameroon in the final minutes of the quarter but it was Shammah Kwizera who nailed a triple the first chapter 15-18, Cameroon in the lead.

The second quarter is were Uganda lost the game and this came in the final 2 minutes.

With 2:35 left in the second quarter, it was just a 5-point lead for Cameroon.

However, they closed the quarter with an 8-0 run, making easy layups under the basket to make it 35-22 at the halftime break.

In the third, Cameroon managed to maintain a double digit lead over Uganda for most of it but in the fourth, a window opened for Uganda.

For more than 5 minutes, the Junior Silverbacks limited Cameroon to just 2 points.

However, despite all their good work n defense, they never had anything to show for it on offense.

They scored just 7 points in over 5 minutes and cut the deficit to 8 points.

It’s hard to explain but most of the attempts that the team made just couldn’t go in.

There were a lot of missed layups, a lot of missed open shots .

In the end, this came back to bite the team.

Uganda kept applying pressure on Cameroon forcing them into errors but they never rewarded themselves.

In the final 3 minutes of the game, Cameroon had 7 turnovers bu, Uganda scored just 2 points in that time.

This was the story for the entire game and despite there being a lot of positives defensively, offense needs to step up.

The biggest disparities in this game were the rebounds and the field goal percentage.

Cameroon had 14 more rebounds than Uganda but the 2 teams were tied on offensive boards.

Uganda had 18/80, 23% from the field which was underwhelming.

On the other hand, Cameroon which had 9 less attempts than us, scored 5 more than us. 23/71, 32% FG.

This is where the game was won/lost and Uganda needs to address the offense more so the finishing.

Player Stats

Uganda

Joshua Bwakanda 11 pts, 10 reb, 1 stl

Pierre Rwuhiriro 11 pts, 10 reb, 4 blk

Shammah Kwizera 10 pts, 6 stl, 5 reb

Cameroon

Nolan Ngangmeni 13 pts, 10 reb

Felix Deumi 10 pts

Luther Maboula 11 pts, 9 reb, 3 ast, 2 stl

Uganda will be back in action on Friday 5th as they take on Tunisia.