DESIRE MUGWIZA, the President of the Rwanda Basketball Federation (Ferwaba) is delighted with the performance of local players who featured for foreign clubs during the qualifiers of the Basketball Africa League (BAL) 2022. Patriots players Kenny Gasana and Guibert Nijimbere featured for Burundian outfit New Stars, and have so far helped it reach the round of 16 of the qualifiers. Their team-mates Dieudonne Ndizeye and Bush Wamukota played for South Sudan’s Cobra Sport and helped it qualify for the final tournament. The players put up good performances for their new teams, for example, Ndizeye scored a game-high 32 points against Kenya’s Ulinzi Warriors in one of the games he played. In another game, he scored a valuable 20 points to help the team hang on by a thread in their close-fought 78-76 victory over Burundi’s New Stars. The same applies to Gasana who was a key element of New Star’s eye-catching performance, as he showed leadership and great understanding of the game during the qualifiers. The Rwandan shooting guard delivered inspirational performances in victories against Cape Town Tigers and Matero Magic. Speaking to Times Sports in an exclusive interview, Mugwiza praised the players for the performances, saying it shows that the local league is at a good level. “They performed well. Their statistics were good statistics in the games they played. Such shows that our league is at a good level. We shall put more effort in our league so that even next time, many of our players will get deals at foreign clubs,” he said.
