How Wits Alumni won the Title
Back in March I wrote a blog on lopbasketball.co.za saying that I feel that Wits Alumni has a shot at the title. And guess what? I was right!!! My reasons for Wits Alumni winning the title was the depth of talent in the backcourt & the frontcourt. With players like Mfundo “Katlegong Killer” Dube, Onkgopotse “Walk the Talk” Ndlovu, Mboshe “You see it coming but can’t do anything about it” Ronunu, Dinesh “D-Nice” Mitchell, Tsakane “Real Deal” Ngobeni, Thabo “Spiderman” Letsebe, Quintin “The Pretty” Denyssen and Djo “Tsunami” Loo, Wits Alumni was bound to succeed this past season. I saw Egoli Magic play and felt that they were beatable. Egoli have Lesego “All 5 Positions” Molebatsi, Joseph “You can’t stop me” Mazibuko, Sifiso “3-point Assassin” Ngcobo, Castro “Solid as a Rock” , and Tuka “The Defence Rests it’s case” Motaung
But here’s the interesting thing, Quintin Denyssen was in Mozambique playing for another professional team so he missed the final. And Djo Loo sent me an sms saying he’s out of the country a few days before the final. He went to Libya to play professional basketball for one of the teams there, so he was nowhere to be found on the day of the final as well. So Alumni went into the final without 2 key members of their front court. They would have to rely on Tsakane Ngobeni, Thabo Letsebe & Dinesh Mitchell to post up against a very solid Egoli Frontcourt.
Tshepo Ditshego, Coach Maepa & Kp new that the only way we could beat Egoli is if our backcourt completely outplayed theirs. And having sustained a knee injury at practice Tshepo “Jabu Pule” Ditshego knew he wasn’t going to be 100% going into the game.
Coach Maepa who was a big reason for Alumni’s success racked his brain for a strategy going into the final that would secure a victory against Coach Jose Costa Leit from Egoli. What he came up with was a strategy that saw the Wits Alum backcourt playing man to man and the big men playing zone. The reason for that was to contain Egoli from driving & bombing three’s while still being able to prevent Egoli from getting second chance opportunities.
Throughout the game Coach Maepa switched from his original strategy to zone defences as Egoli found a way to get things done on the offence end against all the strategies that Wits Alumni came up with. Egoli were just unlucky that they were missing most shots on the day. Mboshe Ronunu, Onkgopotse Ndlovu stepped it up on the offensive end while Dinesh Mitchell put Lesego Molebatsi in “the hole” and threw away the key. Joseph Mazibuko was contained in the second half & Sifiso Ngcobo wasn’t getting a lot of open looks from beyond the arch.
Towards the end of the fourth quarter Egoli found themselves down by 15 points but managed to claw back to 5 points down with 30 seconds left. It was written. Alumni managed to hold on to their slim lead and win the title which they dedicated to the late & great Ashraf Lodewyk.
Egoli finished the season with 3 victories over Egoli and Alumni beat them twice. But the second victory proved to be the most important….The game that decided who wins the LOP title.
I’m looking forward to the GBL league next year. Look out for my prediction on a website near you because you know how I roll……
Article by Tshepo Ditshego
Your account for the game makes me feel like i am there again..
Michelle,
I’m glad the article did that for you. We managed to get a tape of the game from Kp. It was nice reliving the W again. I’m only noticing the mistakes now. My proof-reading needs to step up a notch.