Nust students in basketball whitewash

. Nozipho Ncube
THE Zimbabwean sports sector will always lag behind until the field is equally valued as the academic sector.

Thata��s the reaction from Nust students who lost in all their games in a Federation of Africa University Sports (Fasu) basketball tournament that they had attended in China recently.

Sports and academic studies should be equally esteemed in Zimbabwe, they said.

Socially there is a mentality that sports are not as important as education in Zimbabwe and people tend to give more prominence to academic studies than sports,A� according to Melissa Majonga, one of the students who had gone to China for the tournament.

a�?People always assume that playing sports while studying will affect their studies but this is not true one should just know how to balance both,a�? Majonga said.

Another student, Isabel Sibanda, highlighted that Zimbabwe was lagging behind in terms of performance in sports because less attention was given to the field as compared to other countries.

a�?I realised that so many players from China and other countries were under sports scholarships but here in Zimbabwe not so many students are given sports scholarships,a�? Sibanda said.

Mxolisi Ndlovu, a Nust lecturer and basketball coach, said Zimbabwe was still way behind in terms of training facilities and this had an effect on the performance of players.

a�?We dona��t have facilities for training here at Nust so we usually hire Khanyisile Sports Centre popularly known as Bulawayo Club of the Disabled when we want to conduct our training. That is costly and we can only manage to train a few times in a week unlike in China where even primary schools have better facilities than us,a�? Ndlovu said.

Despite the losses, Ndlovu said the team got an opportunity to network and established good relations that could be helpful in the development of basketball in Zimbabwe.

According to Lorraine Manjoro, another student, as a team they learnt that they should not depend on a few good players but every team member should be an excellent player.

a�?In Zimbabwe we play structured basketball where the whole team depends on a few good players but other countries play as a team, each and every member is an excellent player,a�? Manjoro said.

The students said they did not only learn basketball techniques but also learnt about different cultures of people from various countries.