Basketball camp aims to build 2024 Olympics team
Dumisani Ncube | Wednesday August 17, 2016 14:59
The training camp, which will feature 50 young basketball players, takes place from August 26 to 29 in Gaborone. GoA is the brainchild of US National Basketball Association (NBA) outfit, Toronto Raptors president and general manager, Masai Ujiri. GoA’s main objective is to promote basketball in Africa.
The local camp, which will see Toronto Raptors specialist coaches drill players, is organised by businessman, Abhijoy Gandhi’s entity, QuesS Capital LLC.
Young basketball players aged between 15 to 18 years have been selected from various parts of the country such as Kasane, Maun, Francistown, Palapye and Gaborone.
“Youth empowerment is a big deal. It is the best way to rule the next century; creating big trees for the future. Through GoA we are looking forward to nurture and produce a team that can represent the country at the 2024 Olympics,” Gandhi said.
Gandhi noted that through the GoA camp the young players will be equipped with international standard basketball techniques and at the same time a number of local coaches will be selected to take part during the training camp.
Upon the completion of the GoA camp local coaches are expected to conduct regional camps, as they will be imparting skills obtained from the Toronto Raptors coaches.
“We have to first nurture our homegrown talent to be high performance-oriented so they perform against big teams. To be able to compete at international level we have to hone (the skills of the) players at a young age,” Gandhi said.
QuesS Capital LLC and the Botswana Basketball Association (BBA) are working on bringing local and international investors to assist with developing basketball infrastructures. The sport has been suffering from lack of resources due to inadequate funding.
BBA technical director, Mothusi Thipe said issues such as height and performance at various competitions such at the BISA games was considered in the selection of players. The GoA coaching programme is already successful in countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Rwanda.