Basketball in Africa

The head coach of the visiting Sierra Leonean basketball team, Young Sportsman Club, has given reasons why his team continues to substain defeat in the special Peace and Reconciliation tournament currently taking place at the Sports Commission in the Liberian capital Monrovia. Coach Ali Hijazi said one of the contributing factors is his team's strange introduction to 24 seconds clock which is universally used by FIBA members countries. "We don't play with 24 seconds clock in Freetown," he added. Another area cited for his defeats is the "poor refereeing" especially against his team, and made specific reference to his match against NPA Pythons in which his side lost with 20 points margin. "Because of the cheating, my players' momentum dies." The coach, who is also owner of the team also informed this paper that some of the key players of the team could not come due to school engagment. He said the team is not discourage over the defeats as the tournament is only a friendly one. The YSC Boss said he hopes to be back in Liberia for the Mano River Tournament in November this year and said before that, he hopes to invite a Liberian team for some friendly matches in Sierra Leone. Meanwhile, YSC continued to suffer deats in the ongoing tournament. She went down to Liberia's champion LPRC Oilers on March 29 63-73 points.