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South Africa will start season 43 as the number 85 in the world out of 98 countries, putting the focus on Africa we can see that there are 5 countries ahead of us with. We won't be able to close this gap within a couple of months, but we sure will be able to climb a couple of places on the world ranking and get better results compared to the last couple of seasons. Below are the african rankings before the start of the AfroBasket tournement.

39 Senegal Africa 220,0
44 Nigeria Africa 202,1
61 Ghana Africa 131,5
63 Algeria Africa 129,1
77 Marocco Africa 90,7
85 South Africa 68,0
87 Egypt Africa 66,2
95 Tunesia Africa 37,0

The schedule of AfroBasket is as follows:

30-7-2018 vs Senegal (39)
6-8-2018 vs Nigeria (44)
13-8-2018 vs Ghana (61)
20-8-2018 vs Algeria (63)
27-8-2018 vs Egypt (78)
3-9-2018 vs Tunesia (95)
10-9-2018 vs Marocco (77)



Last edited by Masterminds (#1 RSA Coach) at 7/27/2018 3:51:59 PM

South Africa v Ghana 123-112

South Africa won their first game of this AfroBasket tournement, beating Ghana (2-0) who are ranked 63rd on the NT rankings by a score of 123-112. After two straight defeats against Senegal & Nigeria the team was ready to take away Ghana's undefeated status and win their first game of the tournement. With this win the team moved from 6th to 5th place with a 1-2 record and a -21 point differential (best of all teams with a negative record).

Cebekhului led the team in points & rebounds (24/17) with only 28 minutes played, it's great to see our oldest player contribute so much still and it proves to be the right decision to call him up for the NT. Cebekhului's replacement, Tefu played the same amount of minutes and was the second highest scorer in the game for South Africa making 7 out of 8 shots and 3 out of 4 free throws. South Africa had a 24 rebound advantage which was curcial in the outcome of this game, it is expected that the team will continue to rely on this advantage against future opponents in order to be successful.

In the 4th quarter the coach made the decision to give the backups some playing time after leading comfortably, Ghana attempted to cut the lead but were unable to do so. Next week it will be Algeria who sit 3rd in the group with a 2-1 record, hopefully the game shape of most of the key players will remain good and the coach will be able to play with the best lineup.

Man of the match:
Mabhoko "Shaq" Cebekhului
24 points & 17 rebounds

The scores:
South Africa (123)
Cebekhului 24, Tefu 17, Mji 15, Mbatha 14, Stewart 13, Qaba 8, Lekgwathi 8, Kalaka 8, Mabuza 7, Hlomelang 7, Motsoaledi 2 , Fazzie 0.

Ghana (112)
Mbeng 20, Diamacoune 20, Dem 14, Toumbou 14, Niass 13, Senghor 8, Sakhonoko 7, Fadiga 6, Goundo 6, Sissoko 4, Barry DNP-CD, Diarra DNP-CD.


Last edited by Masterminds (#1 RSA Coach) at 8/14/2018 5:07:43 PM

Thank you for the summary!

Hou die voete maar plat op die aarde

After the team was able to practice together for a couple of days, the media was present at Saturday's press conference in Johannesburg. Looking forward to Monday's match, the coach was asked how he sees his chances against Algeria in round 4 of the AfroBasket Championship.

''Ek is baie tevrede met die span, maar ons moet versigtig wees om ons volgende teenstander niet te onderskat nie. Als jy die basiese goed reg doen, verval baie van die onsekerhede wat sommige van ons jonger spelers mag hê.''

One of the journalists was asking the coach if he wanted to give a prediction for the match, as the team surprised Ghana last week that some of us are probably expecting it again against Algeria.

''Om te voorspel dat die span die wedstryd teen Algerië sal wen, jy soek na moeilikheid. Albei spanne se voorbereiding en strategiese beplanning sal regtig deeglik gedoen wees, maar ons almal weet, op dié dag is alles moontlik.''

With the game shape of most of the key players being really good, the chances are almost fifty fifty. If the team knows to contain Naïm Bouchemaa, things are looking good. If we are unable to do so, it might be a very long day for us.
We would like to thank the fans who supported us against Ghana last week, and we need your support again Monday against Algeria who play at home. As things look like right now we will almost certainly keep our 5th place if we are unable to win, hopefully this will take a lot of the pressure away from us and we will be able to play without fear.

Prediction
Algeria wins by 6 points



Last edited by Masterminds (#1 RSA Coach) at 8/18/2018 10:28:27 PM

Please write in English rather than Afrikaans

Last edited by Sandy at 8/21/2018 9:55:32 AM

Al Jazair v South Africa 89 - 90 (47352)

What a fantastic game, and what an even greater finish!
As predicted this would be a really tough match against Algeria, with the home advantage in their favor we needed to play at our best to have a chance of winning. For a very big majority of the match it did look like we had lost, with just 2:46 left in the 4th quarter the Algerians were leading by 11 points. Then with just under 2 minutes left to play their lead was still rather comfortable with 9 points, from that moment our guys stepped up and showed some fantastic fighting spirit. With just 52 seconds left to play Algeria was leading by 5 points, the team took a timeout and that was a great move. After the timeout Shumba Fazzie took a 3 point shot and made it, then after some fouls on our side and missed free throws on their side the lead was cut to just 4 points. With 21 seconds on the game clock Nqabeni Mabuza got the ball beyond the arc and made another 3 pointer, we cut the lead down to just 1 point! The next attack of Algeria result in a missed shot and we got the rebound, with just 3 seconds left to play it was Thabo Kalaka who scored and gave us the lead by just a single point. Timeout Algeria...both teams talked about what play to use for what would most likely be the last 3 seconds of the game, Algeria was able to get their last shot of and...missed! Game over, South Africa beats Algeria by a score of 90-89!

Despite the other team having an rebound advantage of 11, we managed to keep things tight. We limited their star player to just 2 made 3 point attempts and 25 points. They only scored 3 out of 17 3 point attempts, this compared to Algeria's 9/20 3 point shots made last week against Egypt. South Africa had 14 assists more, 27-13. This is a big improvement to last weeks 17 assists against Ghana.

With this win the team remained in 5th place in the standings for the AfroBasket championship as Marocco beat Ghana also by 1 point! This means 4 teams are tied with a 2-2 record, but we already played the top 4 and only have the bottom 3 teams remaining. This puts us in a great postion to reach the second phase of the African Championship.

Die span sal môre die dag af kry, hulle verdien dit. This will give them some time to recover from the tough game we played, but we will make sure to be ready for Egypt next Monday. Ons kry kritiek, maar dit sal ons nie keer om die manier waarop ons dinge doen, voort te gaan nie. I would rather encourage everyone to join us to move forward together instead of not getting involved at all. That's it for now, from today on we will focus on Egypt and make sure to keep this winning streak alive. We are not done yet, there's plenty of more things that need to be done and I'm sure we will get there, the easy or the hard way. More likely the hard way, but that is nothing to worry about if we put in everything we got, as a team, just like our guys did in today's heroic victory.

Man of the match:
Sekgoma Lekgwathi
24 points & 8 rebounds

The scores:
South Africa (90)
Lekgwathi 24, Fazzie 16, Hlomelang 16, Mji 10, Mabuza 7, Cebekhului 7, Kalaka 4, Stewart 2, Mbatha 2, Qaba 2, Motsoaledi DNP-CD, Tefu DNP-CD

Al Jazair (89)
Bouchemaa 25, Mabrouk 20, Abidi 15, Keddi 13, Rahmani 8, Ouabed 4, Naidja 2, Zoghlami 2, Kosseir 0, Ouksili DNP-CD, Tamimi DNP-CD, Beldjazia DNP-CD.

Last edited by Masterminds (#1 RSA Coach) at 8/21/2018 4:30:08 PM

good one 👊🏿

Good job! :)

Great!

Ons gee nooit op nie

A lot of happy faces during Friday night's press converence in Johannesburg, and we don't need to explain to you why...do we? With many journalists from all over the country it was more crowded comapred to the previous 4 weeks, with a win on Monday against Egypt the team will almost be certain to qualify for the second stage of the AfroBasket tournement

The first question the coach got tonight was if he could take us back to the last couple of minutes of the game against Algeria.

''Met minder as 3 minute op die klok, ek het gedink die wedstryd is gespeel. Maar die gevegsgees het ons teruggebring, dit is iets wat ek aan die spelers gesê het wat ons nooit moet opgee nie. As ons so kan voortgaan, sal baie spanne hul hande vol hê as hulle ons speel.''

With 2 wins and 2 defeats and just the bottom 3 teams remainig in the schedule it's just a matter of time for the team to officially qualify for the second round. Right now the team is in 5th place and a top 4 finish at the end of the second round is possible, do you think this team is capable of doing that?

''Ons is nou baie naby, maar ons weet dit van die hand na die mond die pap op die grond kan val. Jy kan dink dis 'n stukkie koek vir ons, maar moenie jou kuikens tel voor jy nie weet of die henne van die haan hou nie. Een wedstryd op 'n slag, niks meer niks minder nie''

The team is 2-2 right now with a -20 points differential, sitting at a 5th place South Africa will climb to a minimum of 4th place if the team wins against Egypt, since Algeria and Ghana will play against eachother both with a 2-2 record. This is a perfect situation to continue our winning streak, and extent it to 3 games. We will try to have a posstive points differential after the match, maybe this will be something that becomes important later on in the tournement. Suid-Afrika is die groot gunsteling vir sy kragmeting Maandag in Algerië teen Egipte, dit is so duidelyk soos daglig.

Prediction
South Africa wins by 21 points

South Africa garnered their third win in a row by disposing Egypt 117-90 in season 43 of the Africa Championship Tournament hosted in Algeria.

Motsoaledi lead the South Africans in scoring to the tune of 21 points on 8 of 15 shooting, but the real game-changers were their starting big men who dominated the boards and provided the much needed scoring oomph they badly needed. Umi Mji corralled seventeen boards and frontcourt partner Lekgwathi had twelve. Both stalwarts combined to add 32 points into the scoreboard as South Africa never looked back after the ending the first half with a comfortable nineteen point cushion, 66 - 47. Even though the bench was emptied by the start of the final canto South Africa was still able to hold off the Egyptians, even inflate it to as much as thirty points before a late rally narrowed down the scoreline.

Egypt was lead by Hussein Al-Abir's 19 points as all five Egyptian starters scored in double-digits. Center Afridi Askari also had 10 points and ten rebounds.

South Africa is still within a shout of the next round as it rallied past Ghana for the fourth spot in the standings. The team will face of with 95th ranked Tunisia next week. Stay tuned.



Scores:
Egypt (90)
H. Al-Abir 19, N. Al-Amin 17, Z. Ahmed 14, M. Muthanna 14, A. Askari 10, H. Shareef 6, H. El-Amin 5, F. Sulaiman 3, J. Al-Yousef 2, A. Tibi DNP-CD, S. Abed-Saleh DNP-CD, A. Musa DNP-CD

South Africa (117)
P. Motsoaledi 21, U. Mji 17, S. Lekgwathi 15, S. Mbatha 14, S. Fazzie 12, N. Mabuza 12, G. Tefu 12, R. Hlomelang 9, M. Cebekhului 3, T. Naidoo 2, T. Kalaka 0, E. Stewart DNP-CD

Quarters:
30-24; 66-47; 93-70; 117-90

Last edited by Pro_Shot 🇵🇭 at 8/28/2018 3:06:40 AM