KPA IS OILERS FIRST HURDLE IN KIGALI.

#ROADTOBAL2020 – This evening at the Kigali Arena, City Oilers will begin their campaign to get qualification for the maiden Basketball Africa League (BAL) that kicks off in March 2020. City Oilers will be playing Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) , a side that went unbeaten in the first round of qualifiers. Head to head, both teams are tied at 1-1. KPA won the first encounter 69:65 in a 28th August 2014 Africa Championships qualifier while the Oilers won the same contest 73:65 on the 6th of October 2017.

During their respective BAL Round One qualifying events, KPA got all Wins against USONI, Cobra, BVH and GNBC while the Oilers lost one to Rwanda’s Patriots BBC and going ahead to win three against Dynamo, Hawassa and JKT.
City Oilers were pooled in tier B of the East Division’s Group H together with KPA(Kenya), Ferroviario de Maputo (Mozambique) and Cobra (South Sudan).

Group H’s Tier A has the following teams; Patriots(Rwanda) , GNBC (Madagascar), UNZA Pacers (Zambia) and JKT (Tanzania).

The top two teams from each group will advance to the Semi-Finals, where the teams that finish in the first three places will qualify for the Basketball African League regular season in March 2020.
The Oilers have have been boosted by the availability of Devonte Elliot(F), Tyray Petty (F) , Jordin Mayes (G) and Ivan Lumanyika (F).

KPA have Faisal Aden the former Washington State University star who went undrafted in the 2012 NBA draft but we could not confirm his fitness for the qualification event because he recently suffered an injury. If fit, Faisal Aden would be a huge addition for KPA because of his scoring prowess. On January 25, 2013, Faisal Aden scored 59 points for his native Somalia in an 83-86 loss versus Rwanda during the 2013 FIBA Africa Championship qualification.
The game will be played at 5:30 PM at the Kigali Arena.

See link here below for live stream

Team Rosters:
City Oilers: Tony Drileba, Jimmy Enabu, Ben Komakech, Josh Johnson, Ivan Muhwezi, Ivan Lumanyika, tyray Petty, Robinson Opong, Landry Ndikumana, James Okello, Devonte Elliot, Jordin Mayes.

KPA: Faisal Aden, Job Ayodi, Paul Ekiri, Bwanga Michael, Antony Kidong’o, Ariel Okall, Evan Leting, Valentine Onyango, Victor Odendo, Dickson Odhiambo, Keegan Oyugi, Kristoff Thande, Kennedy Wachira.