MyBasketball

The USSA team recently came back from Serbia where they didn’t fare really well, finishing last. We can be quick to point the blame on the coaches or players but I think that before we do that we should look at the planning that went into getting the team selected and ready to participate in this tournament. We don’t seem to learn from our mistakes and year in and  year out we sent teams to international tournaments hoping that they will pull off miracles and win a game or two or even qualify in the case of qualifiers.

The young men and the coaches that went to represent South Africa at the World Student Games went there with the best intentions but with the wrong tools or not enough of them. It’s like going to play a basketball game and when you get there you realize that you didn’t bring any balls and the hoops are not available but there are two teams and all the officials are there. My point is that I feel that this team was set up to fail from the time they were selected at the USSA tournament at the University of Pretoria earlier in the year. The team didn’t have enough depth at the post position and if that says that we don’t have depth at our tertiary institutions then all I can say is that the game at senior level is as doomed as it is at junior level. As far as the coaches are concerned, I can guarantee that there is no coach that goes into a big tournament like this with the intention to lose or not do well, so before we criticize the coaches we should ask ourselves if they were given the right material to work with from the start… That my take on the World Student Games where South Africa came 25^th out of 25 teams… Better planning from USSA next time might help the teams achieve better. Read the rest of this entry →