Basketball in Africa

IT wasn’t a pretty sight at all. The Palais des Sports was turned into some kind of a war zone at the end of Saturday’s game two of the men’s Seychelles Basketball Federation (SBF) Cup best-of-three final series between PLS Hawks and Premium Cobras.
Once again, the actions of some unruly fans, likened to hooligans, in the stands eclipsed over the beautiful game.
Although Premium Cobras and HotShots swept the two finals, the final celebration was low key as it wasn’t the best way to bring the curtains down on the 2006 basketball season which had until then gone on in quite normal conditions.

Premium Cobras 79 … PLS Hawks 78

Winners of game one on a 75-68 score, Premium Cobras led 17-13 at the end of the first quarter but trailed PLS Hawks by five points – 38-43 – at half-time, as they were outscore 30-21.With Premium Cobras’ centre Lenny ‘Bad’ Aglaé giving Jim Domingue too much room to manoeuvre, the veteran power forward made his experience count in this period, coming off the bench to score two consecutive 3-pointers and two jumpers for eight straight points. In fact, he got 14 of his 22 points in the second quarter.

Nigel Annette gave PLS Hawks the lead for the first time in the match after completing a three-point play (37-35) with 1 minute 39 seconds (1:39) left on the clock in the second period.

With their quick-tempo game doing the trick for them, PLS Hawks went to go-to-guy Stephen Omony in the third 10-minute spell during which he made the most of a mis-match when defended by Christopher Camille. The Ugandan all-rounder scored 14 points in a row to help PLS Hawks open an 11-point gap after 30 minutes of play.

Starring a big deficit, Premium Cobras decided to fight back and coach Guy Hall switched Nigerian power forward Reuben Kolawole to man-mark Omony in an attempt to shut him down.

On ‘Bad’s long trey with 4:03 left to play, Premium Cobras came to within a point (70-71) of equalising.

The lead then changed hands from time to time and on an Abdallah ‘Dulla’ Ramadhan drive with 1:14 left, the scoreboard read 77-75 in favour of Premium Cobras.

After Barry Baron made one of two free-throws and Domingue connected on both attempts from the stripe after coach Hall was hit with a technical foul for leaving his designated zone, PLS Hawks led 78-77 and had possession with 14 seconds left to play.

Instead of running down the clock, Omony, who finished as the game’s top scorer with 28 points, made an uncharacteristic error, throwing a long pass towards Neddy Fanchette and Tony ‘Siro” Moustache, the smallest player on the court, cut it to release ‘Dulla’ who scored the winning basket for his ninth consecutive point in the fourth quarter and a total of 22 points. He finished as the best scorer for Premium Cobras who ended the season 7-0 against PLS Hawks in this year’s head-to-head record.

As Premium Cobras started celebrating their League and Cup double success – their fourth in nine years after achieving the feat in 1998, 1999 and 2004 – spectators started throwing bottles and pelted those on the court with small broken stones (makadanm), while the police officers present at the venue stood and did nothing.

PLS Hawks players also reported that looters had entered their changing room, stealing money and other valuables, while the windscreen of a car parked outside the venue was badly damaged.

With his game-high 28 points going up in flame after the defeat, Omony said: “I was aware of the time left but not that we were leading. Otherwise, I would not have thrown this long pass.”

As for Hall, who won his first title as a coach after replacing Jude Talma at the helm, he said:
“Victory for Premium Cobras was in God’s hands after I was hit with the technical foul. I dedicate this victory to the living God and I promise all the fans that we will do it all over again next year. Our good physical conditioning and defence won us the day today (Saturday).”

HotShots 48 … Mont Fleuri 31

The women’s game failed to live up to expectation, but HotShots did just enough to take game two to close the series against Mont Fleuri who lost Tracey Moustache early in the second quarter with a leg injury, and celebrate their first ever SBF Cup win.Once again, coach Philip Arrisol went to his one-two punch of centre Tina Agathine (13 points) and power forward Myra Solin (12 points) for scoring and they combined for 25 points. Jenita Tousaint was the only HotShots player in double figures with 11 points.

Although they dominated all four quarters 7-4, 16-9, 12-9 and 13-9, HotShots were not happy with their performance and skipper Agathine told Sports Nation that “we are the champions although we did not play well. There’s a great feeling within the team after wining the SBF Cup for the first time in our history. After missing Myra (Solin) in the league, we were able to put up a good challenge to eliminate last year’s champions (Anse Etoile Stars) in the SBF Cup. We are very happy with what we’ve accomplished this year.”