South Sudan defeats Chad at AfroBasket’s 2021 qualifiers tournament

[Deeq A.]

CAMEROON – With Cape Verde having sailed through to the Qualifiers of the FIBA AfroBasket 2021, the South Sudan-Chad matchup was without great stakes but the South Sudanese made sure they came out in hot red form.

South Sudan confirmed their loss to Cape Verde was behind them with a strong start in the first quarter as Teny Bak and Emmanuel Malou ran the court with flashes of brilliance to ensure a 26-20 lead at the end of the first quarter.

Ronald Kolmia hit double digits by the second quarter but couldn’t prevent South Sudan from widening the point gap to 16 as the Central Africans trailed 48-32 at half time.

Teny Bak hit a game high 17 points with Bol Bak chipping in 12 points while Emmanuel Malou and Ngor Kuany each contributed 15 points as South Sudan thumped Chad 100-69 to end the three-nation FIBA invitational tournament with a win.

Ronald Kolmia’s team high 16 points, Moussa Taguina’s 12 points and Yayangar Ndeta’s 10 points counted for nothing as Chad recorded their second defeat in the competition.

“We were wayward,” Chad’s coach Abdoulaye Nodjimadji said during the post match press conference.

“The guys played hurriedly and nothing worked out well for us in this tournament. The spirit is just different and there’s frame of mind that when you come into a tournament with, you just can’t win.

“I just hope this can spur Chadian authorities to invest more in the sport because we can do better.

“We couldn’t organize our local championship and we came in with players who weren’t as fit as we thought.

“Whatever happened on the court is a translation of what’s going on off court. We have talent but for us to get results we need to work more.”

For South Sudan, the FIBA AfroBasket 2021 Qualifiers Invitational Tournament was the second tournament the country was appearing in and a victory against Chad is foretelling of good fortunes.

“We are a young team and these players haven’t played together for long but we are very happy with what they were able to do,” South Sudan’s coach Ajou Deng told FIBA.basketball.

“We want to continue to grow and improve. We are a young federation but the goal is to continue building this team and paying more attention to the youth categories.

“It was good that we won this game, it is a good thing heading forward for the next generation. This is actually something we can build on heading into the future.

“Overall I’m happy with these kids and I think they did just what was expected from them. We didn’t get it right this time around but if we can maintain such resilience then we will accomplish some great things,” he concluded.

Courtesy of two wins, Cape Verde advanced to the Qualifiers of the FIBA Afrobasket 2021 where they will be facing Egypt, Morocco and Uganda in Group E in November in Alexandria.

Qaran News