The U18 Boys team safely landed in Cairo, Egypt ahead of their U18 Zone V Afrobasket Qualifiers. The event will be taking place from July 23 to 29 with about 8 countries expected to participate.

Uganda was supposed to host these qualifiers back in June at the Hoima City Arena but due to the Ebola outbreak in the country, the hosting rights were withdrawn and granted to Egypt. Subsequently, the event was postponed to July.

The Boys began their preparations as far as December 2025 where a trials were held and about 30 players selected. More players came for trials in January and the number was further trimmed down to about 20.

During the first term holidays, there was a 2 weeks’ camp in which the players worked on different things and from those, a couple were to be selected. However, with ebola and the postponement of the event, the plans changed slightly.

Squad

1. Shane Kwizera
2. Shammah Kwizera
3. Nkugwa Magezi
4. Eli Senyange
5. Levi Ogiramoi
6. Leone Sekandi
7. Mongo Stephane Saidi
8. Odoi Silver
9. Munashe Isaac
10. Kakooza Ashiraf
11. Kateihwaho Jacob
12. Mbomba Zizi Zola
13. Rwuhiriro Pierre Laurent

Technical Staff

1. Juuko Daniel (Head Coach)
2. Egau Jonathan (Assistant Coach)
3. Barbara Okot (Team Manager)
4. Jonathan Oketch (Equipment manager)
5. Vincent Etyang (Team Doctor)
6. Hudson Ssegamwenge (HOD)

Continuity

A number of players that were selected have been a part of the youth system. Shane Kwizera, Shammah Kwizera, Odoi Silver and Pierre Rwuhiriro were a part of the U16 team that made history after finishing 5th at the 2025 FIBA U16 Afrobasket in Rwanda. Shane and Shammah were also part of the team that won the qualifiers in Tanzania.

Mongo Stephane was part of the U16 team in 2026 but got injured just before the tournament and had to be replaced.

Eli Senyange was part of the team that played and won the U18 Afrobasket qualifiers in 2024 in Kampala. However, he was not present for the Afrobasket Championship in South Africa.

Isaac Munashe played at the U16 Afrobasket in 2023.

Lack of Preparation

In June, the team was physically and mentally ready for the challenge after having had a lot of training. However, since then, not much has been done for the collective. Different people have been doing some individual work outs and one hopes that they are ready. Some players did not even have passports and that’s says a lot about our readiness as a nation.

A number of these players will be seeing themselves for the first time in Egypt. If they can be able to click and get chemistry, we can only hope.

Additionally, the coaching staff slightly changed. During the training, Andrew Tendo was leading the way assisted by Ben Komakech, Moses Okwera and Daniel Jjuko. In this event, Jjuko will lead the way, assisted by Jonathan Egau.

Title defense

The last time a Ugandan basketball team played qualifiers in Egypt, they won the tournament. That was the Gazelles in 2025. Secondly, Uganda has won the last 3 Zone V qualifiers for the youth. This means that Uganda has pedigree in these tournament and despite not being prepared to the degree that they would like, history says that they are the favorites.

The girls team qualified for the championship after having finished top four in the last edition which was in South Africa. They will be playing in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire from 5-16 August.