As you walked into the Hall at the University of Witwatersrand, you were greeted by noise from all corners and people being entertained by some basketball action and the dancing taking place. Not forgetting the beautiful people roaming around.
The Wits Hall 29 was also dressed for the occasion with banners everywhere, VIP section with food aplenty, shot clock system, computers in every direction, helpful ladies and bouncers at the door that were there to make sure that everyone behaved and got their monies worth. Some of the banners on show were the ESPN, Channel O, Darkchild, Gauteng basketball, AND. With camera crews doing the rounds from Supersport and Yfm, it was bound to attract plenty of coverage for the event sponsors. Basketball South Africa (BSA) top brass also made an appearance and it was nice to finally see the board in flesh at such an event.
The day started with D1 games for both men and women which were more competitive than anticipated. By the looks of it, teams have gone all out to recruit and strengthen for this season of basketball. If you think that D1 is a retirement village for former basketball players, you have something else coming. There were blocks, dunks, fastbreak and amazing intensity in these games to get the season going. Some in the crowd were under the impression that it was all in the sake of exhibition but the players on the court knew that it was for the points that they were balling for so there was no inch spared. Read the rest of this entry →