SA Team 1st Camp – 4th to 9th February 2009

Before the Camp began and even after it was underway the underlying problem around it was the fact that the venue was moved at the last minute and the communication to the affected players and coaches wasn’t forthcoming in a speedy manner. With BSA still relying heavily on the support of the Department of Sport and Recreation South Africa, they had to bring it to the HPC in Pretoria because of their existing relationship with SRSA so the process was going to be smoother than taking it to the North West University High Performance Institute. But with the change of venues, this created a series of problems for BSA as far as trying to organize adequate venues for the teams to practice.

With the teams arriving in Tshwane on Wednesday 4^th February in the evening, the first real contact the coaches had with the players was on Thursday at the High Performance Center in Pretoria. For the first 2 days of the camp, the players stayed at the Protea Hotel and finally moved to the HPC on Friday. With practice venues an issue, The men spent the 1^st day of training on Thursday at Pilditch Stadium indoor center in Pretoria West and the ladies managed to organize the indoor facility at St Mary’s DSG in Hatfield even if they had to use the outdoor courts at Tuks in their afternoon session. With 4 players missing from the men and 3 from the ladies team due to various reasons like work and studies; the attendance of the camp by both the ladies and the men’s team was satisfactory if not excellent.

On the 2^nd day of the camp, Basketball South Africa president Malesela Maleka and first Vice President Dr Malumbete Ralethe spoke to the players to welcome them and explain to them what they expected from them in terms of responsibility and the way forward for the senior team. Later in the evening, players got a chance to raise their concerns in a private meeting with the BSA management and hopefully this is a sign of things to come from this new BSA board.

So with the first 2 days of the SA camp being a bit chaotic, things seemed to return to normal with the third day of the camp. The indoor venue at the University of Pretoria was made available to the guys on Friday while the girls were getting used to the DSG court. Funny enough there were a few curious onlookers in the stands during the male and female sessions, which show that basketball remains an attractive prospect to many people in South Africa.

Speaking to all the coaches the main thing that seemed to be repeated over and over was the fact that the players seemed more mature and prepared to face the challenges ahead of them. Both teams will be trimmed to 12 players before the 2^nd camp so as to give the coaches a chance to better prepare for the qualifiers in Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

Speaking to the players and in particular, Neo Mothiba the current SA men captain and his deputy Quintin Denyssen, they were confident they could qualify if their preparations were up to scratch. Looking at the Ladies captain, Emmerentia Ledwaba during the ladies session, you could see that she has a major role to play if they are to qualify and she is still very much the dominating figure on the floor.

With the coaching staff at their disposal, Mlungisi Ngwenya, Thierry Kita and Craig Gilchrist for the Men’s team and Craig Daniels,  Brenda Mutungutungu for the ladies both teams are going to be ready to take on the qualifiers in a positive way.

Article by Victor Shakineza

Tags: Basketball, Basketball South Africa, Botswana, BSA, Madagascar, Mozambique, North West University, North West University High Performance Institute, sa, South Africa, SRSA, University of Pretoria, University of Pretoria High Performance Center, Zambia, Zimbabwe