Basketball in Africa

By Suleiman Jongo

Basketball players who had been selected to the national teams ahead of the African Zone Five tournament in Rwanda have rejoined their clubs to prepare for the Dar es Salaam Regional Basketball (RBA) league quarter-finals.

Tanzania aborted the Kigali trip after the cash-strapped Tanzania Basketball Federation (TBF) failed to raise about Sh45 million needed to prepare men and women teams for the tournament.
The Kigali event will be held at the end of this month. It will feature teams from Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Burundi, Somalia and hosts Rwanda.

A Basketball Dar es Salaam (BD) official, Manaseh Zablon said the local quarter finals will now be held this Saturday after they were postponed last week to allow players prepare for the Kigali tournament.

Former East and Central African champions Vijana 'City Bulls' take on the Army Basketball Club (ABC) in the first quarter-final match.

Vijana, the league's reigning champions, will now use its two key players- Abdallah Ramadhani, alias Dulla and Mohammed Ally, alias Dibo- who had joined the national team.

Dulla, a professional basketball player who once played for Seychelles' Cobra, is a key front player.
JKT- who top the Eastern Conference group with 12 points- will play against Chui in another Super eight match while Tanzania Prisons date Oilers.
Pazi- a seasoned team in the country- will face Savio who missed the championship last season.
The teams qualified for the quarter-finals after performing impressively in the preliminary rounds.
Tanzania Prisons are second placed in the Eastern Conference group with 10 points while ABC are third with nine points. Pazi are the last in the group with eight points.
The Western Conference group is led by Savio with 12 points and Oilers with 11 points. Vijana have 10 points while Chui have nine.
BD organised the league under a Tanzania Breweries Limited (TBL)- Kilimanjaro brand- sponsorship.