The rise and rise of Kenya basketball star Felmas Koranga

“Shimba Hills Secondary School was the start of a something which I never saw coming. It was the start of something new which has changed my life. I learnt that I could make something of myself without my parents having to spend a coin, and I have used it well.”

That is all the fast-rising Felmas Adhiambo Koranga told Nation Sport in an exclusive interview on her success on the basketball court locally and abroad.

From a young girl disinterested in sports, the 25-year-old 6’1’’ tall Nakuru-born Koranga has been winning everything on the basketball court since becoming the first Kenyan and African player to be nominated for the Women Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) Player of the Year Award.

And last week, Koranga pulled down an awe-inspiring 22 rebounds and a woman-of-the-match performance to help her college Troy Trojans to victory in the NCAA tournament, beating Louisiana-Lafayette 73-65 in the Sunbelt Conference finals to clinch the championship and a spot in the NCAA tournament.

It was a historic night for Koranga, who recorded a career-high 22 rebounds, a record in the Sunbelt tournament, on the night. She also finished with two assists and two blocks.

She will be the first Kenyan-born woman to play in the NCAA tournament. Kenya Morans centre Tom Bush Wamukota played for Wichita State in the NCAA tournament.

With that brilliant performance, Koranga wrote history, becoming the first woman to record 22 rebounds in a single Sun Belt game. She capped her good display by contributing 12 points for her team, eight of them in nine minutes.

The former Shimba Hills Secondary School player also headlined the All-American team after a stellar season with the team christened “Apache ladies” where she averaged 19.0 points and 13.1 rebounds per game.

The Kenyan international forward was also awarded the Sunbelt Newcomer of the Year Award after averaging double digits with 12.5 points and 10.3 rebounds. She was also named on the second All-Sunbelt team in the Sunbelt Conference.

“When I joined Shimba Hills Secondary School in Form One in 2010, basketball was not the sport I wanted to play. In fact I was so lazy that I was comfortable with just going to class and relaxing in the dormitories during games time,” Koranga said, adding that the desire to go for weekend trips with other students and pressure from her elder brother Ariel Okal as well as her school coach made her start attending basketball training sessions.

She was born into a family of athletes. Her father Elijah Koranga was a regular member of military football side Scarlet Football Club and national football team Harambee Stars. Adhiambo, who says she did not initially see herself as a future professional athlete, now wants to become the first Kenyan to play in America’s top women’s professional league WNBA, and the Eurobasket.

“Adhiambo’s basketball acumen is on another level. She has a very big wing span that gifts her a unique ability to shoot the ball even when defenders are on her face,” Robert Aran Maima, her former principal and basketball technical director at Shimba Hills said of her. Aran thinks these attributes have played a pivotal role in her success abroad.

Kenya Basketball Federation (KBF) Treasurer Peter Orero says she is a beauty to watch on the basketball court and believes sky is the limit for the youngster. Orero and coach Donald Liruh trained Koranga during 2014 Zone Five Under-18 basketball championships in Uganda.

Kenya women’s basketball coach Ronnie Owino who coached Koranga with the national squad at the 2019 AfroBasket qualifiers in Kampala says her progress is good for Kenyan basketball.

“Koranga is a very good rebounder and generates a lot of points from her perimeter shots. She will only get better,” Owino, who also doubles as the Strathmore University women’s basketball team, said.

Koranga says she had been disinterested in sports because she did not like getting tired. Motivation from Shimba Hills and Mombasa High School players who had landed sports scholarships in US colleges did the trick. She decided to give sports her best shot.

Among the players from Shimba Hills and Mombasa High School who were handled by her high school coach and landed in the US colleges are Jackline Wasuda, Maureen Wasuda, Brenda Wasuda, Miriam Wandanda, Josephine Owino, Beatrice Awino, Mildred Olumasi, Purity Odhiambo, Zipporah Khasoa, Linet Juma and Taudencia Katumbi. 

“I just did not like sports because I did not like getting myself tired, but I wanted to be out on weekends when other students would go out for games. That encouraged me to get fully involved in different sports,” she says.  

The turning point came in Form Three when she started playing basketball but did not make the first team of the school.

“She was tall and athletic, just like many of her school mates who had made a mark in basketball. We literally ganged up with my school coach to force her into the basketball court,” Aran who is also a basketball coach, said.

With those baby steps, Koranga slowly made her way into the school team. She made the school team for the 2012 East African Secondary School games in Burundi where her team lost to home team Lecee de Tanganyika in a close final match. In 2013, she helped Shimba Hills basketball team win the East African secondary schools title in Lira, Uganda.

“I started enjoying the game as time went by. With encouragement from my brother (Ariel)  Okal and my school coach, I took it upon myself to learn the game,” she said.

The soft-spoken Koranga however says she almost quit the game after completing her secondary education in 2013. The call-up to the Kenya Under-18 basketball team for the Fiba Zone Five Championships and pressure from her brother Okal made her continue playing.

“After school, I thought my relationship with basketball was over but while in Nakuru with my parents, I got a call-up to the under-18 basketball team. I resisted before finally making up my mind to join,” she says.

The sixth born in a family of 10 says travelling with the junior team to Uganda where Kenya won the title convinced her that she could play the game. It is then that she started thinking of offers for scholarships to American colleges.

She is full of praise for her father for putting pressure on her to continue playing the game even after she had decided to call it quits in 2015 and went back to Nakuru as she had not started going to college.

“My father being a successful sportsman himself was not comfortable seeing me idling around just watching television in the house the whole day. He  ordered me to go to Second Brigade (Lanet) where some players had been training and I joined them henceforth. Together with my mother who took it upon herself to wake me up to go for morning runs, life really became difficult for me, and I decided to take up basketball seriously,” she said, thanking her brother Okal for urging her on.

Koranga says secondary school coach helped her get a scholarship to study and play basketball at Loyola New Orleans in the US in 2017, but she failed to get an American visa.

She got completely discouraged after she was denied a travel visa but kept practising and playing at her Nakuru backyard until 2018 when another chance to join Tyler Junior College came calling.

Koranga joined Tyler Junior College at the beginning of 2018. She says her first year in the US was terrible. She would be homesick and would at times cry. It took her time to adjust, and get used to the food. She would then change her routine and the way of life altogether.

“I was used to sitting at home and playing in the evenings but here, things were different because I would go to class in the morning, go for practice in the afternoon and in the evening I would be in class as well. The summer was also very tough on me. I would get so rashes in my body. I took time to adjust but eventually I did,”  she said in an interview from her Alabama base on Saturday.

At Tyler College, she says having two other Kenyan teammates (Clara Rotich and Owen Rajula) made life more bearable for her. They kept her company, making life  more bearable  for her. Former Kenya international Peter Kiganya and his family were also very helpful to her.

In her first year, she helped the team win the regular season in the Region 14 Championship but the team was knocked out in the second round of the National Championship. The same happened in her second year when the team started the season well and went unbeaten in the first leg but finished in the middle of the table.

That however did not did not prevent her averaging 19.0 points, and 13.1 rebounds with 26 double doubles from the 31 games  she started.

“When I came here, I set myself a target to play in the Eurobasket because the level of the game there is lovely but I will not mind featuring in the WNBA”, she said, adding that she would want to follow in the footsteps of another Mombasa-bred star, Josephine Achieng Owino, who became the first Kenyan to be drafted into the WNBA by Washington Mystic basketball club.

Other accolades Koranga has won include being named the Women Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) Player of the Year at Tyler College in the National Junior Collegiate Athletics Association (NJCAA) League.

She was also named in the 2020 WBCA Two-Year College Coaches’ All-America team.

In her two years at Tyler College, she amassed a college record over 1,000 points and 750 rebounds. That brilliant performance attracted interest from Troy Trojans who play in the NCAA Division One where she is currently pursuing a degree in Psychology.

Looking back from when she was hesitant to take up basketball at Shimba Hills, she reckons she made the right decision to listen to everyone around her and take up basketball as a sport.

“I have travelled all over Africa, and over the last two years, I have been to so many different places in America. It was a good decision to stick to basketball and now, I have dreams of making it bigger,”  she said.