Update from Serbia 2009 World Student Games… (1)
Japan – South Africa 107:61
Japan posted the first win at the World University Games in Belgrade. They dismantled South Africa in Group O today. The African team remained winless as they suffered the third straight defeat at the tournament. Kosuke Kanamaru knocked down 19 points to lead Japan. Takatoshi Furukawa had 18 points in the winning effort. Amogelang Keogatile (193-G-88) replied with 15 points and 12 boards for South Africa.
Japan scored eagerly in the opening stanza as they accounted for 30 points. It helped the Asian team to pile up an 8-point lead into the second stanza. South Africa could not pick up the slack as Japan started to get away in the second quarter. Japan outgunned their opponents by 19 points in the second stanza to grab a 27-point halftime lead. Japan never slowed down in the second half. They wrote in 32 more points in the third stanza to enter the final period with an insurmountable advantage. South Africa had no answers for the onslaught and had to surrender at the end.
Yuki Mitsuhara delivered 13 points for the winners. Celemusa Khumalo notched 12 points in the loss.
Japan: Kosuke Kanamaru 19, Takatoshi Furukawa 18, Yuki Mitsuhara 13
South Africa: Amogelang Keogatile 15+12 boards, Celemusa Khumalo 12
Game against South Korea, South Africa lost 105 – 72. I am not sure that they will be playing another game.
Here are some of the scoresheets from the games that I managed to get:
Source eurobasket
SA is going to beat UAE…..TRUE STORY.
LETS GO BOYS!!!!
HAi keh!! our bois were given a hiding no competition whatsoever. These players were capable of atleast bringing one home, maybe even two. I jst dont think the coaching was good at all, not that ima coach or anything. I wonder wht type of ball we were playin. All first quarters are ok, competitive, but once they go back to the drawing board to find ways to beat us we cant seem to answer back, check the second quarters. A team leads us by 5 points first quarter (this means our players can match them up), Second quarter they lead by 30 (definitly they have explored our weaknesses and we didnt theirs). Ahh well!!
Tifo
Please lets not blame the coaching staff…please.I dont know maybe we can blame the weather or the takkies even the flight maybe but please lets not blame the coaches or the players.Those guys are trying their best shame.They have constantly being improving.
We can find many reasons and people to blame but at the end of the day there is only one thing. Failing ti prepare is preparing to fail..
If you wanna see where the boys lose their games just check out the rebounding stats and tell me if you can win a game like that.
Best of luck to the boys for their next game.
Tifo
Any reason why you blame the coaches? shed some more light.
I had the opportunity and privileged of refing one of the boys games whilst they were preparing to go – i must say that the boys were “too nice”, not tough enough!
Skills wise, most of them were ok, i liked seeing Angola, Tshepo Matsie, Nhlanhla, Ayanda – all of these cats are legit but its hard for a guy like Nhlanhla to play point against a player the height of Angola playing pg!
Makgosto was shooting decently, Nhlanhla pushed the ball well but the turn overs, low shooting percentage and poor rebounding (which allowed the opposition 2nd chance shots) really killed us.
The stats tell a story – we are at the bottom in most stats but i gotta give credit to the boys for showing character. Like Neo was saying, the lack of preparation was really an achiles heel for team Mzanzi “fail to prepare – prepare to fail”!
We gotta stop the mentality of we’re improving, we’re growing, we’re empowering and rejuvenating – when are we going to start reaping?
Naftal
How do we reap when we dont sow?You and Neo have said it nicely,how do we expect to be world beaters when we dont give the team the preparation to be world beaters.
Its the same thing thats going to happen with the SA Senior team,IF it happens that things dont go according to plan we will raise a lot of questions but forget that SUFFICIENT preparation was not there.It comes back to issues that Joe then raises to say ‘should we then go to these events’?I feel that USSA and BasketballSA must relook their strategies in preparing for events/tournaments.We can not continue preparing our teams the same way over and over again but expect different(positive) results.
Alarm bells should have gone off when the team came from Bangkok winless and thus should have worked out another strategy on making sure we go there and do well.Having not prepared properly is the reason why I requested Tifo not to blame Coaches nor players cos that would be very unfair.
we love to blame the coaches aren’t we and players. shouldn’t we rather address the main problem.