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Innocent Kurira Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWEAN basketball outfit JBC suffered their second consecutive defeat at the Basketball Africa League (BAL) 2024 East Division Elite 16 qualifiers after losing 84-71 to Uganda side City Oilers at Ellis Park in Johannesburg, South Africa yesterday.
The loss followed their opening 75-55 defeat to Mozambique champions Ferroviario da Beira on Monday. For Oilers, who are nine-time Ugandan champions, this was their second victory in the four-team group having registered a 81-76 win in a dramatic match-up against Club Omnisport de La Police Nationale (COSPN) of Madagascar on Monday.
Speaking to Fiba media after the loss, JBC coach Addison Chiware said they failed to defend well against Oilers.
“My boys played hard. We should have defended those three-pointers better. That was the difference,” said Chiware.
The winning coach Mandy Jurini said it was an important victory.
“We have to respect teams that are playing here. They are here to compete and to win. At the end of the day we have to expect that we have to play hard; and play through tough times to get a win. That’s very important for us. We are not concerned about winning the game by 20 points; How we play and how we improve, that’s important for us.”
City Oilers couldn’t be in a stronger position ahead of a clash against a known opponent Ferroviario da Beira on today in a potentially explosive encounter.
JBC are in action today as they face COSPN of Madagascar.
Making their debut at this level, the Harare-based club, JBC, bolstered their squad with the inclusion of Senegalese centre Abdoulaye Ndoye and Nigerian big Chris Brown as they aim to become the first team from Zimbabwe to qualify for BAL.
They have also added former Cape Town Tigers’ shooting guard Curtis Hollis who will combine with others who dominated in the qualifiers as they hope to make history.
The podium finishers join three other teams that qualified for BAL Season 4 in Yaounde earlier this month during the West Division Elite 16 where Sporting Club Bangui (Central Africa Republic) and Faith Union Sport (FUS) of Morocco and first-timers Al Ahly Benghazi of Libya sailed through.
Six other teams — the champions of Angola (Petro de Luanda), Egypt (Al Ahly), Senegal (AS Douanes), Tunisia (US Monastir), Nigeria (yet to be determined) and Rwanda (APR) – have direct tickets, making it 12 for the 2024 BAL Final.
Also, for the first time, the 12 teams will be divided into three conferences of four teams each.
Each conference will play a 12-game group phase during which each team will face the other three teams in its conference twice.
Online Reporter