Oct 08, 2020(Nyamilepedia) — The FIBA Basketball has announced that South Sudan, Chad and Cape Verde will tussle for the FIBA AfroBasket 2021 qualifiers ticket to Kigali, Rwanda.
The three teams are given a one-time head-on-head opportunity with games scheduled to be held between October 22 – 24, 2020 in the Cameroonian capital, Yaounde.
While South Sudan has ever participated in the FIBA AfroBasket, Cape Verde’s last attempt, which was its sixth appearance in FIBA African Championship, was in 2015 in Tunisia and Chad had its first and last appearance in 2011 in Madagascar.
Despite that South Sudan is participating for the first time, the Africa’s youngest nation which has been rocked by a civil war put out an incredible perfomance during the Pre Qualifiers games but narrowly slipped in a 74-68 defeat to Kenya in its final game in January this year.
South Sudan’s basketball officials, however, remain positive that the wildcard tournament could be all the chance they need to qualify to the 30th edition of the AfroBasket, a men’s basketball continental championship of Africa.
Speaking to the media, Majak Moun, a member of South Sudan’s technical team, said the South Sudan Basketball future remains very bright citing the fact that South Sudanese men and women participate in NBA and other major basketball leagues around the world.
“We have so many players across the continent and around the world who are doing very well and playing at the highest level so the future is very bright for South Sudanese basketball,”Majak Moun, a member of South Sudan’s technical team mentioned to FIBA.basketball in September.
Majak reiterates that South Sudan wants to qualify so that they can participate in the AfroBasket 2021, and so is Cape Verde and Chad.
“We want to qualify for the Qualifiers in November. That will give us a chance to go to the AfroBasket.” He added.
Cape Verde, which has missed out for the last six stints in the continental tournament will be hoping they can worm their way to the final round of Qualifiers.
“We showed that we can compete with any team in Africa. If things are planned ahead of time, I believe we have a chance to qualify for the [FIBA] AfroBasket 2021.” Cape Verde small forward Ivan Almeida told FIBA.basketball.
“Representing my country means the world to me. I’ll always try my best to help elevate the quality of the game in Cape Verde and show the world that we can play quality basketball, and also, that we have our place on the African basketball map.” He added.
The Cape Verde national basketball team has represented the small island country in the central Atlantic Ocean six times in the continental basketball championship between 1997 and 2015 – winning bronzes in 2007.
Chad had played once nine years ago in Madagascar but having the chance to rival with the continent’s best basketball nations is an ideal they’ve entertained for about a decade.
All three teams were handed wildcards with the games to be played from the October 22-24, 2020 in Cameroon’s administrative capital Yaounde.
