Story by Mthokozisi Dube
Four provinces will square off in the Zone Two Qualifiers for the National Basketball championships in Bulawayo this weekend.
It will be action galore as provincial teams from Bulawayo, Midlands, Matabeleland North, and South face off in the zone two qualifiers.
Three men’s teams and three ladies’ teams will be vying to make the cut for the National Championships set for the 25th of May in Harare.
Bulawayo Basketball Association secretary Francis Dube revealed that they are taking lessons from successfully hosting AfroBasket qualifiers.
“We are excited to be having the qualifiers which will start on Friday into Saturday and Sunday,” he noted.
“We have four provinces competing but above that, we hope to utilise the experience we had during the Afrobasket tournament where our officials were providing statistics after each and every quarter.”
“We have BCD and Eveline as our two venues for this tournament,” he went on.
The qualifiers mark the first step of the journey to the Basketball Africa League set for Rwanda in August.
“We are ready the games will be played this weekend and as the Basketball Union of Zimbabwe, we have put everything in place. Twelve men teams and five ladies teams have confirmed participation,” said Basketball Union of Zimbabwe President, Joe Mujuru.
The ZONE One qualifiers featuring teams from Harare, Manicaland, Mashonaland East, West and Central will be played next week in Mutare.
The last edition of the annual basketball extravaganza was dominated by Harare Province with Foxes winning the men’s competition while their ladies team, the Vixens emerged victorious in the ladies’ category.