Mali Crush Uganda to Keep AfroBasket Hopes Alive

The Eagles of Mali bounced back from their opening day defeat to register a hard-fought 85-72 victory over Uganda in Group D of the 2025 AfroBasket.

With both teams coming into the game on the back of game day one defeats to Egypt and Senegal respectively, this particular matchup became a must-win clash to boost any hopes of making it to the next round. Mali’s Mahamane Coulibaly got the memo and delivered when it mattered most as the forward dropped a team-high 25 points on an efficient 10-of-16 shooting, while Aliou Diarra muscled his way to a double-double, finishing with 12 points and 10 rebounds to mark a first win for the West African outfit.

The opening quarter saw Mali come out swinging, feeding off the energy of their traveling supporters inside the Pavilhao Multiusos de Luanda where they blitzed through Uganda in the first quarter, racing to a 25-8 lead with balanced scoring from Sirman Kanoute, Coulibaly, Aliou Diarra and Mamadou Diarra all chipping in.

But Uganda fought back in the second quarter, refusing to roll over as Deng John Geu who eventually finished with a game-high 27 points and Robinson Opong who also rounded off the game by scoring 19 points sparked an exciting 14-0 run in the second quarter, slicing Mali’s lead to 35-27 at one point. Geu went on to shoot a brilliant three-point shot that ripped through the Eagles as they had to approach the game differently going forward. The Silverbacks eventually won the quarter 23-18 as they trailed by 12 points at halftime.

With Uganda looking to build on the momentum garnered in the second quarter, they almost completed a turnaround in the third quarter with some brilliant shooting as they went on to win the quarter by two points (20-18) to confidently head into the final quarter. At some point in the third quarter, Mali knew a counter-response was needed and it really worked.

Hassan Drame’s clutch three-pointer late in the third quarter ignited an 8-0 burst, pushing the lead back to 57-45 and from there, the Eagles banked on their physicality and a solid game management template, dominating the paint, scoring 34 points and registered another 15 points, that came from fast breaks to eventually close out the win.

Mali’s Oumar Bello who finished with 7 points and 7 rebounds praised the team’s response following their opening day loss and looked ahead with confidence going into their next group game.

“This was a great win for us and we needed it after our first loss. We shot a lot in our practice yesterday and we just wanted to come out strong today which we did. We also noticed that they packed the paint a lot and restricted us to shooting, fortunately for us, the shots fell through today. In our next game, we want to play Mali basketball because we are a great basketball nation, we can beat any team but we just have to stay together and that can take us far in the competition.”

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Jonathan Komagum who finished with 4 points but was big with the rebounds on both ends of the court, registering 13 shared his thoughts after the game with AfricaBasket.

“I mean it was a bad loss for us because I thought like we could have done better, we just have to execute more in the little things and put it together against Egypt. We’ve got to stick to the coach’s game plan if we want to come out on top in a game.”

Uganda coach George Galanopoulos praised his opponents as being the better side but admitted that his team could have done better defensively. 

“I don’t think we underestimated them in terms of guarding their 3s. We have a policy of ensuring that we contest every shot but we failed to do that today, we did a poor job of keeping it tight from our end and keeping bodies on bodies but hats off to them.”

The winning coach Alhadji Dicko also shared his thoughts on what his team did right today that was different from their first game.

“There was nothing special we did today in this game, we didn't play our type of game in the first and that ended in a loss for us but today we did a little better by staying together, doing the simple things and staying very efficient.”

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With the final outcome now decided, the West Africans will head into their next game against Senegal on Saturday, August 16 with more confidence knowing fully well that it could decide their progression in the competition. After their attempted fightback in the loss, a slow start wouldn’t be an option again for the Silverbacks as they will now need some other results to go their way so as to stand a chance of progressing as well.

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