The Sunday News
Mandla Ncube, Sports Reporter
THE Basketball Union of Zimbabwe (BUZ) has accelerated preparations for the Afrobasket preliminaries to take place from 21 to 25 January at the City Sports Centre in Harare.
Zimbabwe will play host to Zambia, South Africa, Madagascar and the Comoros to determine who goes through to the next stage.
“We have started preparations, we are trying to put things together at a very short space of time, we have just put together a local organising committee which has just started working,” said BUZ president, Joe Mujuru.
Despite Zimbabwe being informed of hosting the tournament at the eleventh hour, Mujuru believes the union’s experience in staging such tournaments will come in handy.
“A lot of work needs to happen in the coming week but we will be ready, we have held many competitions like this many times and we have a team that knows what needs to be done,” he said.
With the competition drawing nearer, the Zimbabwean team is expected to get into camp on Tuesday.
“We are not expecting a lot of changes from the team that played in June and beat Mozambique in the same competition, there would be some changes but the core of that same team will be around.”
He is optimistic of progression to the next round and will be banking on home ground advantage.
“If you look at the pool and our quality, we have got a very good chance of progressing, Zambia and South Africa of course are the tricky customers for us but I am optimistic home advantage is going to carry us through,” said Mujuru.
