Basketball in Africa

By Paul Munyuki
Harare

BASKETABALL Union of Zimbabwe's administrative shortcomings were exposed at the just-ended Zone VI All Africa Games and Africa Nations Cup qualifiers at the City Sports Centre.
And that was a bad way to start for an association that was recently readmitted into Fiba after years on the sidelines for failure to pay their affiliation fees.Zimbabwe got the nod from the African countries and, better still, from Fiba to host the Zone VI All Africa Games basketball qualifiers but the Basketball Union of Zimbabwe messed it all up on the games' opening day.

Confusion and disorder marred one of the biggest basketball tournaments Zimbabwe has ever hosted since the 1995 All Africa Games.
This resulted in the ill-prepared Basketball Union of Zimbabwe postponing the games by a day -- something that was not expected at this level of administration and competition.
The games were scheduled to start last Monday at 2pm with the official opening set for two hours earlier on the same day but were postponed to the next afternoon.
Fiba officials, who are in the country for the games, condemned the match venue as unfit for the games as there were some areas that needed serious attention.
The windows at the indoor court were allowing light to penetrate through and the association made another blunder as they bought white paint -- which also reflects light.
The painters had to mix the paint with mud to give it a darker shade.
The court, laid down on Sunday just a day before the games, was also dirty and the cream-like line markings that were used had to be redone as red, white and black are the three recognised colours for marking the court.

The Zone VI Fiba president overseeing the tournament, Mozambican Anibal Manave, alerted BUZ officials that either they use boards with fibreglass or they use wooden ones.
The other fibre glass boards were at the University of Zimbabwe but the institution's sports officials refused to release those boards.
It took the intervention of the Sports Commission for the boards to be released.
The irony of the matter is that the boards were donated to the UZ by the Sports Commission after the 1995 All Africa Games.
Manave said it was important that the tournament was not reduced into a social event.
The games were originally scheduled to start with the official opening at 12 noon but by that time none of the BUZ officials were at the venue.
Representatives from various embassies that had come to witness the official opening and watch their teams play were at the venue by the set time.By 1pm the South African team expressed disappointment over the issue as they walked out of the City Sports Centre and got on their team bus back to the hotel.
Games were supposed to start at 2pm but that was not to be.
While BUZ knew three months ago that they were going to host the games, they had not done enough preparations for an event of this magnitude.