Wamukota wants to see more youth playing the game

Bush Wamukota wants his Kenya team mates to focus on the main prize and inspire more youth to join the sport of basketball instead of engaging in sideshows.

Arguably, one of the best centre players in Africa, the seven footer believes it is their time to sacrifice for the game to set a perfect pad for the upcoming youth to benefit.

“We have performed exemplary well as Morans because we agreed as a team not to think of ourselves in terms of what we want to gain now but focus on getting results to make the game enjoyable and attract to sponsors which might eventually set the stage for our youth to benefit from this noble sport,” said Wamukota.

He is currently in Rwanda with Rwanda’s Patriots for their Basketball Africa League (BAL) campaign that was however been suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Wamukota was born September 28, 1993 in Bungoma.

He is a son of Webuye West MP Dan Wanyama and America-based former international volleyball star Nancy Sikobe.

Wamukota never took basketball seriously when he joined Maseno School in Form One.

“As a Third Former, I was 6 feet 3 inches tall with a growth spurt at age 17 and by the time I was in Form Four, I was 6 feet 10 inches. It’s at this point that our principal Paul Otula, who doubled up as our basketball coach, convinced me to start practicing with the Maseno school team”, he said, from his Rwanda base.

He went to the USA immediately after his Fourth Form and joined Wiley College, an NAIA school in Marshall, Texas, where his mother, was the volleyball coach.

He later joined Kilgore College, where he averaged 6 points and 6.8 rebounds in his first season, a perform that caught the eyes of Wichita State assistant coach Greg Heiar during a recruiting visit.

Heiar made follow up visit with his head coach Greg Marashall who convinced Wamukot to transfer to Wichita State and play his last two years of college basketball there.

On the success of the Kenya Morans, Bush attributes this to good management and the friendship that the current players have adding that the fact that a majority of them are from the same generation made them understand each other.

He is also full of praise of Morans head coach Cliff Owuor whom he says gave the players roles which they were keen on implementing.

“As an old boy of Maseno School, I want to say that basketball gave me an opportunity to travel abroad on scholarships where I played for top colleges among them NCAA which is not a mean achievement.

“I want the young players to put in the work and be disciplined as they play if they ever dream of getting to this level”, he said while lauding the efforts that the Kenya Basketball Federation has done to put Kenya back on the map of Africa.