Basketball in Africa

HOSTS Dar es Salaam men's side popularly known as 'Dream Team' settled third after they beat Citizen City from South Sudan 59-49 in the Inter-city basketball tournament encounter at the National Indoor Stadium.
The lunch -time third place play off match attracted a good number of basketball fans was thrilling and mouthwatering as both teams put up a brave performance.
Dream team started with a high tempo in the first quarter, scoring 21 - 11 points, thanks to an outstanding performance by their shooting guard Erick Lugola, who scored 18 points alone in the whole game.
The Sudanese recovered in the second quarter, in which they looked more aggressive and scored 14 points, while Dream team posted 12 points, meaning at the breather the scored board read 33-25 in favour of the Dream team.
In both second and third quarters, Citizen tried to stretch their opponents to the limit, using their shooting guard, Bol Abok and point guard Ayuel Malua Leek.
The duo gave 'Dream team' torrid time with eye catching dribbling skills. It was not surprising to see Citizen winning the third quarter 19-14 and slightly reduced the total margin to 47- 44 as the match sailed into the final quarter.
Brief quarrel emerged in the fourth quarter, when the Egyptian referee, Wael Abdhiay called for 24 seconds foul for Dream team, a decision which was vehemently contested by coach, Kablula Shomari by the fact that the machine for counting 24 seconds collapsed.
The coach won in the battle and the game continued where Dream team dominated the last quarter with 8 points while citizen scored 5. Commenting on the game, Citizen City coach, Burshara Mursara stated that it was a good and entertaining game, saying if African countries decide to invest in basketball they will certainly benefit a lot.
"There is a lot for African countries to explore in basketball... we have talents and skills. I believe we can do much more than what we are doing at the moment.
"We have young players who can play anywhere in the world, our fans are our sponsors, let's make this a great deal, we have talented basketballers in Africa," he said.
He praised 'Dream team' for a good show, saying they put up a good display but still need to improve. For his part, the coach Shomari noted that they expected a different game from Citizen.
"They came with a different game strategy from what we had expected, however, we managed to handle them.
"Truly they surprised us, we saw them in the other matches and we expected them to play man to man but eventually they played zonal game but we were flexible and we changed to win the game," he said.
In the other game, which was the final women game in the tournament, Nairobi defended the title after beating Kampala 59 - 58.