Giants and Bulawayo City Towers dominate BBL basketball pre-season tourney
Story by Mthokozisi Dube, Sports Reporter
IT was basketball action galore at Khanyilie and Eveline High School in Bulawayo this Saturday when the two venues hosted the pre-season tournament, which acts as a curtain raiser to the Bulawayo Basketball League.
Giants went all the way to be crowned champions in the men’s category, while Bulawayo City Towers were winners in the women’s category.
Giants narrowly edged Legends 21-19 to walk away with bragging rights in the men’s category, while Lakers Mzansi had a disappointing campaign against Bulawayo City Towers losing 21-14 in the women’s category.
Bulawayo Basketball League Secretary General, Francis Dube indicated that it is now systems go for the 2023/24 Bulawayo Basketball League.
“We are actually excited. This is a pre-season tournament. Ten men and 7 women teams are participating this is a tournament that helps us kick start our season and with all things being equal, we expect to start our season next weekend so that we have our first half running up to the 23rd of December where we normally have a Christmas break,” he said.
FIBA in association with the Basketball Union of Zimbabwe has been running a programme dubbed: ‘Her World Her Rules,’ meant to promote the involvement of the girl child in basketball and an official with the Bulawayo Basketball Association, Tracy Phiri says officials should leverage on the campaign.
“Here is an opportunity for us as ladies to shine. We have demonstrated that we can do it through our NASH representative Petra who came second. This is an indication that we can have good players for the future if we take up the initiative as ladies in the sport,” she said.
The Bulawayo Basketball Association is leveraging a grading system done by BUZ nationally but will hold a refresher course for officials to be in sync with FIBA rules ahead of the commencement of the league.
