Basketball in Africa

by Julius Mbaraga
Kigali

This year's junior African Cup of Nations basketball qualifiers/Africa Zone Five U-18 Championships have been further postponed.
After being moved from May to June, the latest reports indicate that the competition will now be held in August although the venue (Kampala) still remains unchanged.
"We have been informed that the tournament will be played in August but it is not clear why the dates have been once again switched," Jean Lucien Mugabo, the Secretary General of the local basketball federation said.
The changes however, will not affect the juniors' training schedule. According to Mugabo, the team's training schedule remains unchanged.
"The team has been training on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and it will stay that way for the time being," he clarified.
Ahead of the qualifiers scheduled for August 11-15, the 13-man team is being handled Kavedzija Vaceslave, the senior national team head coach.
Rwanda will play against Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt and Eritrea in a bid to qualify for the Africa U-18 Championships slated for October in Cairo, Egypt.
Being the hosts, Egypt have an automatic qualification into the continental showpiece while the other nine countries have to fight for the remaining one slot.
On the junior team's last outing, the team finished second after losing out to Egypt in the final of the ANOCA Games which were held in Nairobi in 2006.