SA ladies trails in Angola 2009
As part of their preparations to the African Championships in Madagascar, the ladies national team undertook a trip to Angola to take part in a four nations tournament. The tournament was attended by Portugal, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa and the hosts Angola.
In their first game against Portugal: It was a tough game because the team had spend the day travelling from Luanda without food or water and had to play a few hours after landing. The ladies lost 95-36.
Their next game was against the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the team was excited with the chance to test themselves. Unfortunately they lost 63 -48. They were 7 points down in the fourth quarter, then the war began with Phila out with a busted tooth, Requelh went out with a bleeding nose and Ellen “Poopsie” went out with a bad knock and the forwards started fouling out after that. The ladies showed great heart by staying in the battle until the end. But they couldn’t make up the deficit in the end.
In their last game against Angola: the Angolan game went much the same as the DRC game. The team competed well in the first half and narrowly won the third quarter. they just struggled to make the final push in the fourth to get to the finish line. They ended up losing by 15 points again. The fact that there were 8 lead changes and 5 game ties shows that SA is able to challenge Angola, which was the purpose of this tour. The team would have like to beat either Angola or DRC, but they can walk away from this tournament knowing that they are very close to them. It is one thing to lose by 15 points and feel beaten, but another to lose by 15 and realise that we can actually beat these teams. That is what the coaching staff are trying to build up in the ladies team.
Coach Craig Daniels says: “Our Ladies Basketball have been losing to these teams for too long, and now we are in the process of building a winning mentality. That is the advantage one has when there are tournaments arranged for your preparation. In the past this had to be done all in a four day camp, and then go to competition. I hope that we are now able to prove the value of preparation time allowed to teams and that this can become the norm.”
“Furthermore: I fully agree with your assessment that we need to be scoring at least 60pts per game to be able to win. Now that the ladies have this tournament experience, this fact is evident, and we now have players working on sharpening their individual skills with the purpose of executing in the pressure of the fourth quarter – which is a big difference to have players preparing themselves to go to a tournament. The other side of the situation is that we know how effective and strong our defence is. We’ve been scoring less than 50 and were still able to compete and challenge these teams.”
Stats for the game:
Article by Victor Shakineza with input from SA Ladies coach-Craig Daniels
Watch out for the master’s tourney in July organised by VUT Alumni. We are just waiting foe the dates from GBL so that it does not clash withthe league games……..
Coaching Staff and Players
its a pleasure to see that we are doing our best in preparing for the tournament and that makes me a proud basketball fan. this will surely give other ladies teams especially the juniors a motivation to work harder knowing that there have to uphold the standard you guys are setting.
to the players, its high time we find time in our busy schedules to put atleast 2 hours a day in the basketball court. that will help us going forward. good luck with all the preparations.
I think BasketballSA should continue supporting ladies bball by giving the exposure that they are doing cos I believe that it will pay off.
Just a couple of pointers that I picked up.Seemingly we having a problem create shots for ourselves based on the stats.29 attempts in 4 quarters amounts to only 7 attempts per half.I think this is not good enough.I am not sure whether this is due to turnovers,bad shots etc
I wish the team all the best and I have faith in that technical staff including the players.
All the best to the SA ladies, keep your heads up,i know you will do just fine
10points BSA for the tourney, this is the only way we can dream of competing at this level until we improve local standards.
Unlike Kim I am not a coach (haha) so my analysis might be off. But it seems to me we did not play our Forwards well as most of our scorers were Guards. With Emma and Nosipho in the team I was confident that we would use them more effectively.
I know that this will sound off, but maybe we should have our National team ladies playing in Men’s teams?
Better luck nest time girls.
Busted tooth? Bleeding Noses? WTF?
Go SA!
lol…@nest time. meant next..haha
Joe
I can not agree with you more on the point of the post players.Having watched and coached the ladies teams I have realised that SA players are not used to playing with post players.Lets make an example of the USSA final.How many times did Nosipho or Nthabiseng get the ball down low?Very few times.I have also noticed that MOST coaches like using posts for rebounding and that doesnt build confidence of those players.
Emma,Nosipho,Seipati and Phila can be mean scoring machines and the reason why I mentioned the field goal attempts was one of those reasons.Seemingly the team relied on the shooters more than banging it in and kicking out if the defensive shrunk to close the inside.I love the way Vaal women shared the ball with the posts and I think with the posts we have,that should be the idea.
I think you raise a good point Joe.