Riverdale, N.Y. (August 26, 2007)- Manhattan College rising sophomore Patrick Bouli helped lead Cameroon to the silver medal, the first medal for his native country in tournament history at Afrobasket 2007 - the FIBA African Men's Basketball Championship - held in Angola.
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In the championship game against the host nation, Bouli and Cameroon played even with Angola through the two quarters, as the score stood at 33-31 in favor of Angola at the break. Angola outscored Cameroon 34-20 in the decisive third quarter on the way to an 86-72 win. Bouli scored 16 points, shooting 5-8 from the floor, including a game-high 4-6 from beyond the arc, and 2-3 from the line. He added two assists and one rebound over 20:00 of play.
Bouli played 26:52 in the semifinal matchup against Egypt in his first start of the tournament, pulling down four rebounds to go along with his team-high and game-high matching four assists. The guard scored both of his points at the line to seal the win with two seconds remaining in the fourth quarter.
This is just the second time Cameroon advanced as far as the semifinals in the FIBA Africa Championship Tournament, and the country earned its first medal. The 1974 team lost to Tunisia in the bronze medal game. This is the first championship game for Cameroon in the history of the tournament, which began in 1962.
Bouli played 23:26 off the bench for Cameroon in the quarterfinal win over the Ivory Coast, scoring a game-high 17 points while shooting 5-7 from the floor, including 4-5 from beyond the arc, and 3-4 from the line. He added three rebounds, one assist, and one steal in helping lead his native country to the semifinals of the tournament. This marks the first time since 1974 the Cameroon National Team has reached the semifinal round of the tournament.
Cameroon went unbeaten (3-0) in group play, posting wins over Mozambique (66-54), South Africa (89-59), and top-seeded Tunisia (75-70). After not appearing in the win over Mozambique, Bouli tallied seven points, five steals, one assist, and one steal in 16:01 against South Africa, an chipped in with four points, three steals, two assists, and two rebounds in 25:39 against Tunisia. Over the course of the tournament, he displayed a deadly shooting touch, connecting on 56.0% of his shots from the floor, making 52.9% of his three point attempts, and converting 69.2% from the line.
Several members of team Cameroon might be familiar to Manhattan fans, as one of Bouli's teammates is Parfait Bitee, a rising senior at the University of Rhode Island, while the head coach of the team is former Rhode Island standout and current Canisius College assistant coach Lazare Adingono.
The 24th African Basketball Championship, known since 1999 as the African Nations Championship, or Afrobasket, is being played in five Angolan cities simultaneously: Benguela, Cabinda, Luanda, Huambo, and Lubango. There are a total of 16 teams in the competition: Group A - Angola, Rwanda, Morocco and Cape Verde; Group B - Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast and Egypt; Group C - Nigeria, Liberia, Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo; Group D - Mozambique, Tunisia, South Africa and Cameroon.
