Wednesday, April 27
•Tropical Royals Vs KCCA Panthers – 6:30pm
•City Oilers Vs JKL Dolphins – 8:30pm
City Oilers will seek to return to winning ways when they face off with JKL Dolphins in the Tusker-Lite sponsored NBL encounter at Indoor Arena in Lugogo.
The seven-time holders come into this game on the back of a 44-58 loss over UCU Canons on Sunday at YMCA, which was their second defeat of the ongoing season.
Oilers Coach Mande Juruni will be hoping for a swift response from his boys after they started with a 0-11 against UCU.
“Yes it was a terrible start of the game and we lost the game right from there,” Juruni told The-SportsNation.
“We lost the game because mentally we were so bad and physically weak. We were bad both offense and defense.We forgot all our defensive principles. Offense was even worse because we only scored 44 pts the whole entire game. We were 8-41 for 2 field goals and 7-38 3 points goals.”
Oilers saw power forward James Okello ejected two minutes into the third quarter for ‘slapping’ a referee.
Juruni adds: “Okello being ejected was not the turning point because we had already lost the game at the start of the game.”
“Team only scored 5 points because we were not effecient at all offensively. I mean we were 8 for 41 on 2 points and 7 for 38 behind the ack. That means we created all those shot but dint score. That gsme was all about us not UCU.”
The coach who has won all Oilers seven straight league titles, says that the loss against UCU on Sunday cannot define their season.
“Where we go from here is just move on to the next game. These kinds of games happen once in a while. They dont really signify us like that. I know we are so much better than that but accept we were bad and move on to the next game. We shall be okay.”
Oilers are 5-2 (five wins, two losses) after seven games – Their five wins have come against KCCA, Victoria University, UPDF, Falcons and Power.
Against JKL, Juruni will demand the best from his reliable played including Jimmy Enabu and Ivan Lumanyika who scored just three and five points respectively against UCU.
In JKL, they face a wobbling side that has won three in their league games so far.
UPDF, KIU Titan’s, Tropical Royals, KCCA and Power have picked maximum points against JKL whose three wins came against Nam Blazers, Falcons and Victoria University.
JKL Dolphins’ recent win against Oilers came on May 15 2019 when they emerged 67-66 winners in a closely contested affair.
