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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

Way to go!

Dis'n toets wat eenvoudig gewen móét word

We are happy with the results and the situation we are in right now, having qualified for the second round the pressure is off and everybody is more relax compared to 3 or 4 weeks ago. We feel confident going into our game with Tunisia, we won comfortable against Egypt last week and we expect a similar result this week. Een joernalis het gevra tydens die perskonferensie of sommige van die spelers rustyd sal kry, of as die span 'n paar nuwe taktieke sal uitprobeer.

''Ons sal hou by die manier waarop ons gespeel het, nie een van die spelers sal rus kry nie, tensy hulle beseer is of 'n slegte spelvorm het. Ek weet ons moet met 'n gemaklike marge wen, maar ons wil so min as moontlik verander.''

With Nigeria and Senegal well ahead of the rest, the game against Morocco next week will be crucial. What are you telling your players to stay focussed for the game against Tunisia?

''Ek sê altyd dat ons elke teenstander ernstig neem en ons moet nie na 'n wedstryd kyk as dit nie ons volgende wedstryd is nie. Maar om jou vraag te beantwoord, ons moet op sy beste speel volgende week teen Marokko, aangesien hulle in dieselfde posisie as ons is. Al wat ek kan sê is n'sakkie vol selfvertroue kan wondere verrig.''

Also we would like to thank Pro_Shot for his contribution to the National Team, we hope that he will continue to be part of our team. Maraming salamat!

Prediction
South Africa wins by 24 points

2 good wins over Egypt (+27) then Tunisia (+36), but each time by trying harder than the opponent.
I think it was not necessary and I am afraid that next round will be difficult due to a lack of enthusiasm.

Previews and post-game reports are interesting. Keep it up! ;)

First of all thank you for making the effort to look at our NT, I'm happy to see reactions and interaction for South African managers regarding the NT! I'm doing everything I can to make the team better, I mentioned in my election speech on what would be my approach. So I hope nobody is disappointed that I'm doing unexpecting things right now... ;)
The most important is to keep a close eye on the NT and not make any mistakes, be stable and make a steady progress.
One of my goals was to get the South African community more involved and active, and looking at it right now it seems to be going the right way.

I don't have a problem in listening to people who maybe have a different opinion, as I told you I would be glad to listen and talk about it. But I hope you agree and feel that the team is going the right direction and progress has been made, I'm not done yet as I would love to continue to lead the NT if given the opportunity. But also at the same time I think there has been little to complain about so far to be fair. I like the fact that you actually speak up and let me know what you think, you could also what I mentioned more than once send me a BB-mail. But this is up to you ofcourse :)

As the NT coach I'm also keeping an eye on the U21 team, and it sort of bothers me to see what has happened and is happening with it right now. Also nobody made any post on the forum regarding the U21 team, it seems like nobody cares about it. Hopefully, and I have confidence that the next U21 coach will be a lot more commited and motivated to do his job.

I will go talk about your comment about enthusiasm and my tactics, GDP & motivation in my next preview. Also I would like to repeat that every managers is more than welcome to send me a BB-mail about any questions etc. I will be more than happy to reply to it, and hear everyones opinion.

You're doing a great job, but please don't be too sensitive.
I think Ebene know the game well and his question is relevant.
Anyway good luck in the next round!