Reflecting on the weekend
After such an awesome weekend of basketball, Mzanzi definitely show cased a lot of talent that the country has to offer and how hungry Kats are to play the game at its highest level. The LOP & GBA both held it down; so hopefully they’ll pick up on that and merge as a close knit family involving everyone working as one unit rather than as two separate organizations…
-Basketball Lovers; let’s talk about this! What is it going to take for basketball to unite so the game can actually grow? School girls and boys who play the game don’t want to come out of school and be separated between two worlds. What happened to the PBL? What happened to the Senior Inter Provincial Tournament? Is Engen still around? People lets talk!
Drop your comments down; let’s hear what the Basketball Island has to say.
“Peace!”
By Nthabiseng Mushi
Nthabiseng, as GBA we reiterate our position, we invited LOP several times last year and this year in order to avoid exactly the situation we find ourselves in, the invitation to LOP is still open.
We agree with you that this standoff is not for the benefit of the game, in the past it was Metro vs GBA as a result bball suffered more than it gained, we cannot let this happen again.
The interim BSA committee met this weekend and will be reporting soon on their progress regarding national programmes ie IPT, ENGEN & PBL. What we can mention is that GBA is lobbying to host the Zone Six U18 qualifiers, watch the space.
Joe,
How do you mean ball suffered in the past “Metro vs GBA”?
i think we have been having too many discussions here and believe that as all are interested in contributing to bball, i therefore would like to find out if GBA for instance can’t organise a bball imbizo to discuss how we all can contribute to reviving bball in our communities. am saying this cos i feel that we love ctitisizing and yet we do nothing in our communities. the imbizo should not be for GBA structures but for the whole bball community. i hope am making sense.
Kw3ku, during the Metro vs GBA era mostly teams from Joburg and Tshwane participated in Metro while teams from Sedibeng, West rand, Ekurhuleni, Metseding were not represented. This hampered the development of bball in those areas.
Also, most sponsors who were approached by either GBA or Metro were not interested because of these politics. At Bsa level these two camps also clashed heads, albeit Metro in a different guise, and this delayed the departure of Vusi and his cronies.
Baller, in 2005 an Imbizo was convened and it was resolved in that Imbizo that all bballers should go to their structures and that all future GBA meetings will be convened as per the constitution.
As things stand only the general council of GBA can request an Imbizo and as mentioned ealier, we are planning a general council meeting soon. So, if bballers want the Imbizo, they must request this through their structures. To assist this proccess a graphical structure of bball is SA will be published soon in this forum.
Joe,
Much as opinions have been put accross, the one reason that was always a factor and still is is the games venue issue ie. take VUT for eg. they used to travel to Pta for a forfeit and thats every weekend, mind you thats an institution and they were complaining about expenses and the jazz!
Now take Sedibeng, Ekhurleni, westrand etc. fixtures for their teams where in Mandeville, Tuks, Wembley and so forth and these were just ballers who wanted to play; yes they would register and make few of their games but most of their respective fixtures were not honoured due to the obvious(nevermind the politics)…. Now what is different this time around how are you guys reaching out to the masses? Venues are now down to 2 or 3(Tuks and….your guess is as good as mine).
Fact: Ekhurleni and Sedibeng by far had the most talent coming out of their districts and yet nothing was done to appreciate their efforts(ie. hosting atleast a single game in their home grounds to acknowledge them). Now you been talking development and new structures what is been put in place to develop our coaches, ref’s, technical officials etc. even better arouse interest out there.
Vic, Neo, Nthabi, Baller
Stay true pips and dont get sucked into the politics we see what yall are trying to achieve, Stay blessed.
K
Kw3Ku
Dude i hear what you are saying about Sedibeng etc nit getting enough balling on their courts, the question we should be asking is BSA were are the development opps in those area’s they are screeming for recognition but nothing is being done. When love life was still around development was around. Can we please have that back.
Joe i hear what you are saying, there must have been a valid reason why LOP did not want to link up with GBA. They started something good you gata admit and LOP is all over and the young and old are loving it. So is GBA going to push in supporting LOP in some way or….?
Guys, the current stucture of the GBL is that teams to qualify for the next season will have to come from districts eg Sedibeng. Also, the current teams participating in the GBL that are from districts are subsidised by GBA, as will future teams from districts.
Also, in terms of development, getting the GBL going was has been our priority for the past couple of months, as this was also part of our development plan. Now that this is happening we will be rolling out the rest of our development programme.
Again, I must emphasise to ensure that bball is developed throughour Gauteng, our development programmes will be district based. As we speak, Ekurhuleni and Sedibeng have already submitted their development plans, and will be assisted accordingly.
K, it is sad that in your last communication you imply that I am not trying to achieve anything as I am excluded from your list of achievers. I assume that I fall in the category of the politics that you warn about.
Again, once our debate as bballers becomes personal and exclusive then we stop building and start destroying.
Joe,
No ntate, a mistake on my part I do acknowledge what you are trying to do, nothing personal…
I was under the impression that positive criticism if at all builds not other way round! By virtue of you taking time to blog carries alot of weight.
Thanks for taking time to adhere to this broadcast.
Do shout a halla when rolling out developmental plans as i represent one of the districts rather alot of kids out there…
It just sadens me that we sit in our offices getting by with our 8-5’s whilst the ballers out there are a laughing stock and yet we are the one’s who facilitate how these outcomes influence ball community(esp young guns)…
Still need the response in 2 of the questions I raised as per my previous communique(development for ref’s etc and whats different this time around).
Nthabiseng
When LOP begun last year we invited them to discuss their plans specifically because we knew that they had the skills needed for the league. Personally, Cabby can attest, I have always supported what he has done from the days when DC started in Newtown, my team even took part in one of the first DC production events and got to the final of U18 category where Kgomotso & Makgotla killed us.
Therefore, both personally and organisational we have supported and invited LOP to the table, and they have refused to work within the framework. That invitation is still open to LOP, the ball is in their court.
As you say Joe that the basketball community needs to raise their points at district level, how about we cut a long story short.
Give us the names of the people who are responsible for all districts or a contact person for each district. That way we can deal with those people.
On the issue of subsidies, I have only two words “WATCH OUT” where there is money involved there will be a lot of inquests. The teams which will be subsidised by the ass. GBA must make sure that when they everyone is represented when the teams have to qualify. There is a saga circulating about a district which denying the school children their right to participate and the concequences are not friendly.
Neo, as communicated in the LOP Not Recognised topic, herewith are the contacts for our district structures: Ekurhuleni – Joseph 082 923 6951. Tshwane- Arthur 084 8112098. Sedibeng- Mzwakhe 071 1976 181. Joburg- Danmore- 082 768 5638.
On the subsidies, as GBA we recognise that it will be unfair of us to expect a club like Blizzards to pay the same amount as Tukkies to participate in the league as we will be saying to Blizz. you cannot play because you cannot afford. This formula is also applied in most spheres in SA society where we recognise that others may not be as fortunate as we are to afford to register at a Tertiary institution, but however cannot be excluded from participating in high perfomance programmes.
In future we aiming for District to be the ones subsidising the teams from their districts.
Also Neo, with issue of the qualifiers, as bball we have failed to take the hard decisions, hence it took so long for Vusi to go even though we all agreed that he was incompetent. It is about time that we challenge every unprocedural action, as some people have taken advantage of this, hence our disorganisation. This is a battle that we all must be engaged in for the benefit of bball.
If an imbizo was organised in 2005, it’s been 3 years now and I think we should review that. Now you are telling us about teams qualifying from their district which is a good thing from next year. What was the criterion for selecting teams this year as we even have teams like UJ2, Tuks 2, and Wits 2?
Atleast you should have issued an open invite to teams all over and also made an effort to locate some of the teams. How many teams that play in the LOP new about the criteria used for qualifying to play in GBL? Then how do you decide who to subsidise this year with that R1 500.00.
That’s where my imbizo issue comes up cos then you send invite to all the teams be it LOP or any other league around then we share ideas moving forward. There is a team in Diepkloof that didn’t even know about GBL and they are a lot out there. Encourage your districts committees to go out there and get in touch with bball players.
NB: waiting for your input on placing the GBL fixture on the website.
Vic have you received the fixture from GBL. If you want I can Email to you?
Wow. So many comments. It feels like De Ja vu. Anyway I send out updates on what is happening in ball from time to time. If you like to be included email me on tditshego@stanlib.com and I’ll include you on the email list.