ALEXANDRIA/KIGALI (Egypt/Rwanda) - So many things happened in the First Round of the FIBA AfroBasket 2021 Qualifiers, but some facts deserved a bit of extra attention.

RWANDA

FIBA AfroBasket 2021 hosts Rwanda parted ways with head coach Vladimir Bosnjak. 

NEW COACH, OLD HABITS

Hats off to some new coaches, with some of whom making their debut on African basketball. It's never easy to take charge of a team to compete in a totally new environment, but for Dirk Bauermann and Mike Brown it was business as usual as the pair led Tunisia and Nigeria to a 3-0 start. 

Dirk Bauermann replaced Mario Palma at the helm of African reigning champions Tunisia

Obviously, newly-appointed Senegal's Boniface Ndong and Cote d'Ivoire's Natxo Lezkano propelled their teams to unbeaten starts to the Qualifiers as well, but both have experienced African basketball in different capacities before. Ndong as MVP of the 2005 edition of the African Championship while Lezkano powered the Ivorians to a AfroBasket fourth-place finish in 2013. 

CHASING FIRST-EVER AFROBASKET APPEARANCE 

The race for next year's African Championship is at full swing, and while the majority of the teams are familiar to the competition, two teams are not.

Africa's newest country South Sudan, who become an independent state nine years go, have proven how competitive they can become, and these Qualifiers represent a major opportunity to make their first-ever FIBA AfroBasket appearance. So far, things look great for them thanks to wins over Mali and Rwanda in Group D.

Meanwhile, Equatorial Guinea beat Guinea in Group C's First Round in February in Yaounde, a fact that boosted their chances of making their debut in Africa's premier basketball competition.  They rank third in the group.

ISHMAIL WAINWRIGHT

There is no other way to describe  Wainwright's performance, but the the 26-year-old forward was simply phenomenal. He was the heart and soul for the Ugandans.

Wainwright did everything right to keep the East Africans's AfroBasket hopes very much alive, leading the 'Silverbacks' with team-highs 21.3 points, 8.3 rebounds and 5.7 assists per game.

FORMER FIBA U18 AFROBASKET STARS 

It was a breath of fresh air watching dozens of former FIBA U18 AfroBasket players starring for their teams in the First Round of the Qualifiers.

Achref Gannouni (Tunisia)

From Egypt's trio of Amr Gendy, Ali Ahmed and Ehab Amin, who took home U18 MVP honors, 2016 African champion Angola's Childe Dundao to Mohamed Rassil who ignited Tunisia to a historic second place finish in 2014, last month's Qualifiers gave newcomers hope.

FIBA BUBBLES 

Although the First Round of Group C of the Qualifiers took place under normal circumstances in Cameroon in February, the current pandemic climate affected the original Qualification system with teams playing in bubbles behind closed doors. 

But at the end of last month's Qualifiers, which were played in Alexandria and Kigali, the two bubbles emerged as a major success.

FIBA