Team Uganda’s hopes of making their first quarterfinals appearance at the FIBA U23 3x3World Cup have gone up after a perfect start to the tournament. Uganda won both their games on day one are 1 win away from making it to the quarterfinals for the very first time.

The team came into day one of the competition with the aim of securing 2 wins from their opening 2 games and they did just that. This put Uganda in a prime position to make history.

Perfect Day One

In their opening game, Uganda face Madagascar and they won the game 14-7. With 4:26 left to play, the game was tied at 6 points each. However, Uganda tightened their defense and intensified on offense to get a 7-point victory.

Mary Priscillar Nambogo and Shillah Lamunu Aber each scored 5 points while Sylvia Nantongo added the 4. The biggest concern for Uganda in this game was their conversion rate. They missed 17 of 26 1-point shot attempts, 7 of 9 2-point shot attempts and 2 of 3 free throws. However, all that did not matter because the most important thing was the win and it had been attained.

In their second game of the day, Uganda faced Tonga. They started this game on a high a they made a 9-0 run. All signs pointed towards reaching the 21-point mark but that did not happen. Uganda went scoreless for almost 3 minutes and Tonga scored 4 points in that time to make it 9-4.

Uganda then awoke from that slumber and started to put some points on board. They finished the game with a 15-6 victory. The win was the most important but Uganda missed out on an opportunity to score more points.

Sylvia Nantongo was on fire as she dropped 5 points and 12 rebounds. Mary Nambogo and Sylvia Nakituuka each had 4 points while Shillah Lamunu scored 2 points. Once again the shooting efficiency of Uganda wasbrought into question. They attempted 23 2-point shots but only managed to make 2. On the flip side, they made 9 of the 16 attempted 1-point shots.

Quarterfinals hopes

For Uganda to make it to the quarterfinals, they must win against Latvia. This is because Latvia lost to Spain and if they lose to Uganda, that would mean 2 losses for them whereas even if Uganda lost to Spain, they would have just 1 loss. All this is on an assumption that Spain will win all their games. If they lose some games, the mathematics change. However, for Ugamda, they have one job, to defeat Latvia.

Uganda will return to action on September 17th with their final 2 games of the pool phase. The team has already performed better than they did in both 2024 and 2025. Matter of fact, they have equaled the number of wins (2) that was gotten in 2018.

Uganda vs Spain 5:50 am (EAT)

Uganda vs Latvia 8:20 am (EAT)