The U21 3×3 men and women had an underwhelming stop 3 as neither team made it to the finals.

Since stop 1, a Ugandan team has made it to the finals with the men making 3 consecutive finals. However, for the ladies, they won stop 1 and finished as runners up in stop 3 and 4.

Stop 4 was a bad outing for Uganda as their opportunity to close the gap in the conference standings was missed.

Women

The women, who had lost to Egypt in the finals in the last 2 stops, faced them again in their opening game.

It was a very low scoring game and Egypt won the game 5-4. This game was significant because in one way or another, it was a determinant of who would make it to the finals.

After this defeat, it would take a miracle for Uganda to progress to the finals because Egypt had to lose, a thing they hadn’t done since stop 1.

In Uganda’s second game, they faced Benin and secured a 19-7 victory.

With this, Uganda finished in second place in the pool and given their low scores in the game against Egypt, they finished as the number 4 team in the stop.

Men

The men missed out on an opportunity to close the gap at the top as they failed to make it to yet another final.

In what seemed like an easy group, Uganda was expected to be able to win both games but that wasn’t the case.

The men opened their campaign with an 18-17 overtime victory against Kenya. This game was dramatic because at some point, it felt like Uganda had secured the win but Kenya made a comeback.

Uganda led the game 15-8 after 5 minutes and they were on their way to victory. However, things went downhill. 

Kenya turned the game around and took the lead. However, Uganda scored at the buzzer to send the game into overtime.

In overtime, the game dragged for long and it looked like Kenya would secure the win. That was the case until Edrine Ekau scored the game winner in such a nonchalant way.

The second game was a shocker as Uganda lost to Benin for the first time in the tournament.

Uganda led the game 6-2 and they looked like they would cruise to victory. That did not happen as Benin quicky turned the game around and took the lead. From there onwards, Uganda was chasing and never caught up. Benin won the game 18-14 and advanced to their fiest final of the tournament.

With this, Uganda finished second in the pool and third in the standings.

World Cup in sight

The ladies fate has already been sealed and they can’t win the stop. However, the men have some hope.

Currently, Uganda (men) are in second place with a total of 370 points. The top team is Algeria with 400.

If Uganda wins stop, they will either have the same or more number of points like Algeria.

Since they are in the same pool, they have to make sure they defeat them by a significant margin and condemn them to finishing in fourth place.

This way, if Uganda wins, they will have the most points and qualify for the World Cup.

Stop 6

The men are in Pool A with Algeria and Egypt. They have to make sure that they win both games and advance to the finals.

The women are in pool B with Tunisia and Benin. Despite the fact that they can’t win the conference, finishing strong would greatly impact the ranking points which affects Olympics qualification.