Henry Mwinuka lost his first competitive game as head coach of the Rwanda National Basketball Team after a 51-76 defeat to Mali in the AfroBasket 2021 Qualifiers window 2 opening game for his side.
The Tanzania tactician who has coached teams like, University of Dar-es-Salaam, Savio BC, KIU Titans, Patriots BC, and the Tanzania National Team as an assistant is currently the head of REG BBC and also acting head coach of the Rwanda team.
Henry Mwinuka had a chance to exposure in the national team national, however, his run is short-lived as Rwanda has already had advanced talks with Senegalese Cheikh Sarr to take over as head coach after this qualifier. Cheikh Sarr is in Monastir with the team to observe.
In the 51-76 outcome competitive game, Mali was ahead of Rwanda in all quarters of the game. 14 points was the highest quarter score that Rwanda managed to get making 12-17, 11-19, 14-26, 14-14 quarter scores respectively. Rwanda will have their work cut out today against Nigeria.
All the teams in this Group D have a qualification ticket since the top three teams qualify but Rwanda who is so far at the bottom of the table have the automatic qualification by virtue of being the host for the AfroBasket Final Event.
In Other games of Group D, Nigeria beat South Sudan on a 5 points difference. The first quarter ended with Nigeria leading 18-09. In the second quarter, South Sudan led by Luol Deng who is also currently the Federation president won it with 21-20.
Nigeria won the third quarter with 19-18 before The Bright stars of South Sudan tried to catch up by scoring 22-18, but it was not enough to hand them a victory against the former African Champions. South Sudan 70-75 Nigeria.
In this game, Nigeria did not have its current head coach, Mike Brown due to his duties with Golden State Warriors, the Nigeria D’Tigers was led by Mfon Udofia.
The 2021 Afrobasket Qualifiers games continue today,
12:00 EAT, Cape Verde vs Morocco
15:00 EAT, Nigeria vs Rwanda
18:00 EAT, Mali vs South Sudan
21:00 EAT, Uganda vs Egypt
These games will take place at the Salle Mohamed Mzali, Monastir in Tunisia
