Kenya Morans coach Sadat Gaya has blamed the lack of friendly matches for the team's failure to qualify for the 2023 FIBA basketball World Cup 2023 Championship.
He said their hopes of playing a single friendly match in Cairo before the Cairo show were not possible due to their late arrival in Egypt.
"With the kind of preparations the team had at home, friendly matches would have really helped their course and competitiveness," he said.
"The friendly matches we played before the previous games were helpful. We had plans to do the same in Cairo but we were unable since we arrived late," said Gaya.
He also conceded that besides the team not preparing well for the qualifiers, he had only one playmaker who was nursing an injury.
"I had only Griffo (Griffin Ligare) as my point guard and he was playing with a thigh injury that limited his movements and this forced me to adjust," said Gaya.
he added: "I had to use Albert (Odero) and Awich (Joel) to bring the ball at times especially when I wanted to go big. At times, we lacked creativity."
Kenya arrived in Alexandria a day after the event had tipped off. Their first opponent DR Congo were awarded the walkover on a 20-00 basis.
This is the result that knocked them out of the global festival in Indonesia, Japan, and the Philippines as they had lost all their three games in the opening window.
Morans then lost their two subsequent games, going down 72-39 and 86-54 to Egypt and Senegal respectively.
The event attracted—Angola, Cameroon, Cape Verde, DR Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Guinee, Nigeria, Senegal, South Sudan, Tunisia, and Uganda.
Rwanda, Central Republic and Mali joined Kenya as the only teams that crashed out of the 16-team tournament. The top three from each group will advance to the final round.
Morans' squad consisted of Ronald Gundo, Ariel Koranga, Valentine Nyakinda, Fidel Okoth, Ken Wachira, Odero, Ligare and Awich.
