WBL-AQ: Kananu tips Zanzibar experience to help Hawks' KBF league cause

Kenya Basketball Federation (KBF) women’s league champions Equity Bank Hawks may have failed to qualify for Africa'a biggest premier club competition, the Women's Basketball League-Africa (WBL-Africa), but skipper Betty Kananu is confident they head back home a different squad.

The Ben Oluoch-coached side won two of their three group phase matches to rank fifth heading to the quarters of the Zone Five Qualifiers that conclude on Saturday 2 November in Zanzibar. 

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They played local nemesis and defending champions Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) in the quarters, going down 80-63, in a final score that does not give the true picture of the encounter as the Bankers crumbled in the last five minutes to give away the match. 

As they play the classification matches, Kananu believes, while their qualification target was not met, they have valuable gains from the experience here ahead of the new KBF season. 

Hawks dethroned KPA following a 3-2 performance in the best-of-five playoff final last season and will be looking to retain their title. 

"It was a good experience considering the squad we have here. This helps us gauge ourselves and know what we need to work on. It is a good build up for our season as we have a majority of our regular players here," Kananu said after the side's 92-46 win against Tanzania champions Vijana Queens in the 5-8 classification matches. 

Kananu believes their loss to KPA was largely due to fatigue. "From how we played against them, given that they had a deeper bench, we are still capable of taking on them. We match them until the final minutes but fatigue kicked in and we were not able to finish," she opened up. 

As the new season beckons, the skipper says they will be working on their defense. "We have allowed opponents penetrate our defense easily and our recovery on defense has been wanting. We need to rectify that as a team," she added.

The side will be looking to finish fifth as the qualifiers conclude on Saturday. In their first classification match, they saw off Vijana Queens, leading for 36 minutes of the game. 

Shooting guard Michèle Sokoudjou led the stats with 18 points and five assists as Rita Aluoch bagged a double-double on 10 points and 12 rebounds. 

The Bankers won in quarters of 21-13, 7-11, 29-08 and 35-14 to come a match closer to finishing fifth.