15 Jan 2019

Zimbabwe’s U-18 boys and girls teams are the  International Basketball Foundation 3x3 Young Lions Cup champions after beating Botswana teams in the finals.

Zimbabwe girls’ team beat Botswana 9-4 to defend their title while the boys also beat Botswana 15-6.

Botswana girls team coach, Tiro Serumola said in an interview that Zimbabwe was very aggressive, which made it easy for them to outclass them.

He said they had prepared well for the cup adding that he was happy that they had managed to win a silver medal.

Zimbabwe girls’ team coach, Andrew Chafuti said their main strength was teamwork as the players had been playing together for the past six years.

“We did know that we will play Botswana in the final. We had anticipated that we will play against Namibia and we had to plan for Botswana at the end,” he said.

Chafuti said they capitalised on Botswana’s weakness of failing to shoot from long range adding that they also used speed, strength and agility to their advantage.

Botswana Basketball Association, Boinelo Hardy said she was happy that they had managed to host successful games.

She said all the 10 participating countries that were invited honored the invitation.

“Teams from Botswana, Burundi, Comoros, Lesotho, Mauritius, Namibia, Seychelles, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe participated during the tournament,” she said.

She added that the competition had been registered on 3x3 planet.

Thus, she said Botswana would get a point for hosting the competition.

“The games were on schedule and I am very happy.

And all the 14 Batswana referees were trained to officiating 3x3,” she said

Hardy said they had been using 5x5 referees to officiate the 3x3 games, adding that she was happy that they now had trained officials who would officiate the 3x3 games.

The tournament, she said was the second edition to be hosted by Botswana after hosting it in 2017.

 The games, she said were part of an international programme run by the International Basketball Foundation- IBF. ENDS