FIBA Africa Zone 6 Weekly Review: 28/09/2024

FIBA Africa Zone 6 Weekly Review: 28/09/2024

The LigaSASOL for women in Mozambique came to a halt after protests in the country heated as political tensions rose closer to the elections. The games were postponed from October 25 and resumed a few days later. This meant that the rest days that were previously scheduled had to be annulled so the league can be completed on time.

The competition picked up from where it left off. Ferroviário Nacala claimed their second victory after they upset CD Maxaquene in a 61-58 thriller. Costa Do Sol continued with their dominant ways as they took on Munícípio Beira, who like Nacala were also in search of their second win. However, the sun of Costa Do Sol shone too bright for the ladies from Beira as Costa do Sol dismissed them in a 76-27 blowout. Basket da Lazio who are currently third in the standings looked to keep things as they were when they took of Ferroviário Beira. The game was tightly contested until Lazio managed to pull away at the end and put the game to bed, narrowly escaping the claws of Beira in a 64-57 win. The final game of the weekend was when middle of the table CD A Politécnica took on log leaders, Ferroviário de Maputo. It was all downhill for Politécnica as Maputo took an early lead and remained in command for the rest of the game. They went on to claim a 77-51 win to cement their place atop the log.

Road To BAL concluded in Harare, Zimbabwe overt the weekend with South Sudan, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia were represented by their national champions. The tournament start was pushed back by a day for some technical reasons. The start of the competition was also plagued with some administration nightmares when the Union of Zimbabwe Basketball (national federation) was not satisfied with the clearances of the import players for Braveheart (Malawi).

This subsequently led to Braveheart playing the whole tournament without their import players. They went against the grain when they qualified for Elite 16 despite this obstacle, making them the only team to advance without any import players. As if the delay and the administrative issues were not enough, computers were failing due to terrible to no internet connection. This led to the scoresheets being captured only manually and some games not streaming at all.

However, the tournament went on and the top two teams qualified. Matero Magic of Zambia went undefeated and booked their spot at the Elite 16 tournament next month alongside Braveheart of Malawi who qualified based on point difference against Fox BC (South Sudan). However, there is still hope for Fox BC as there is a wild card available which will most likely be given to a team from this division. It was certainly a learning experience for the organizing committee in Zimbabwe as well as the management of Braveheart on their administrative compliance.

Basketball South Africa (BSA) has been under a lot of scrutiny since the U18 AfroBasket competition in September unearthed the bad governance and lack of leadership of the national federation. The minister of sports and his department came in at the eleventh hour to save what would have been an international embarrassment for a country trying to have a bigger impact on international sports.

As such, the leadership of BSA were called to respond to parliament and present a report of the previous year and plan for the upcoming years and how they will form part of the national sports plans. They made a disaster of this presentation. Most disappointing was that the report did not follow the national framework as instructed by parliament. This led to an exasperated parliamentarian and former basketball player, Liam Jacobs, to cite that the failures of BSA as the reason why South Africa will not have a Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan or LeBron James. Adding that the report was airy-fairy and wishy washy.

MP Liam Jacobs:

This is what we call a generational fumble… We will be stuck with the worst of the worst until BSA gets its house in order.

With these remarks, the parliamentarians dismissed the federation and gave them time to fix their report and come present in person in a future date as they were not happy with the BSA president, Mr Sanele Mthiyane, and his secretary, Mr Sibongile Fondini, not even being physically present in this hearing and having to present it online.

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[Photography / Imagery Courtesy of FIBA, The Big TipOff and DSports]