Ngoni Dapira
MUTARE-BORN former Mercenaries basketball team ace, Moses Muyambo, who was part of Zimbabwe’s Afrobasket tournament squad, has blamed poor technical expertise in the country for the side’s dismal performance at the just-ended basketball continental showcase hosted by Tunisia. Zimbabwe were pitted in Group D at the Afrobasket alongside Algeria, Coted’Ivoire and Cape Verde, but crashed out in the group stages after losing all their three-matches. The team also went on to lose in the repechage matches against Egypt and Uganda to finish bottom of the 16-nation standings.

Nigeria won the tournament, while Angola and the hosts were runners-up respectively, settling for the silver and bronze medals. Muyambo, however, dismissed claims that it was not lack of talent in the country, but poor technical expertise which cost the Zim side. He said most of the teams at the competition had professional basketball players and exuded superior technical drills just like in the professional national basketball association leagues.

“In terms of individual talent clearly we were ahead of several teams at the tournament, but at the end of day basketball is about technical strategies and we were lacking in that area when pitted with the more experienced sides,” said the Dangamvura-born and bred basketball personality.

He said because the local basketball leagues were generally played as social leagues, very few coaches and players had the equivalent aptitude compared to countries with professional leagues.

The Ellery Pinkerton-coached side also had poor preparation for the tournament having only played preparatory matches against two Zambian clubs and two German clubs in their build-up preparations for the tournament.
Muyambo said for the next tournament in 2018, there would be need for more preparation and need to capacitate local coaches with more training in international courses.

He added that Zimbabwe also needed to do more to improve local basketball facilities.
“In Germany, we trained in the high performance centres. If we have more of such high performance facilities then I am sure we would compete better at these continental championships,” he added.

“This was, however, our first continental tournament and I am sure we will pick up on our performance. I was, however, really honoured though to have been part of the squad. It is always a proud moment to represent your country. I really enjoyed playing with our own NBA players like Vitalis Chikoko,” Muyambo said.

Muyambo who is still finalising his endorsement deal to play for the Harare giants, JBC Club, said the deal would be finalised by end of next week.

JBC who were last year’s Basketball Union of Zimbabwe National Club championships winners are one of the country’s leading basketball franchises.