The City Oilers officially booked their spot in the 2026 National Basketball League (NBL) semi-finals after completing a 2-0 sweep against the KCCA Panthers in their best-of-three quarterfinal series.

Coming into the series, the KCCA Panthers were the underdogs and it was going to be difficult to see them go past the 10-time champions. However, in game one, they showed that they can be able to put up a fight.

At the halftime of game one, City Oilers led by just 3 points but a strong third quarter performance saw them take an 11-point lead into the fourth quarter. Despite KCCA fighting in the final period, they were unable to turn things around and the Oilers won the game 58-50.

Having been a close game one, the Panthers had a lot of optimism of levelling the series. However, the Oilers also knew that they had to be better and that is exactly what they did. Started the game strong on both end of the floor and took a 27-9 lead after the first break.

This lead was very big for the Oilers but for KCCA, this was a very deep hole that they had to crawl out of. In the second and third quarter, the Panthers looked much better offensively and outscored the Oilers 39-32. This cut their deficit to 11 points as the fourth quarter approached and they still had a lot of work to do in order to turn the game around.

In the first minutes of the final period, KCCA carried the momentum from the previous 2 quarters and managed to cut the deficit to just 6 points with 7 minutes to play. At this point, it was anyone’s game but the Oilers managed to make an 8-0 run to make it a 14-point game.

With the scoring slowing down, the City Oilers managed to secure a 77-61 victory to complete the sweep and advance to the semi-finals.

Player Stats (game 2)

Joel Lukoji 14 points

Benjamin Kawumi 12 points

Patrick Rembert 12 points

Oscar Byomihangi 11 points

The City Oilers will be facing the winner between the Rezlife Saints and Sommet. That series is currently tied at 1-1 after Sommet defeated Rezlife in their own backyard in game 2 to level the series