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Ellina Mhlanga, Harare Bureau
ZIMBABWE senior men’s basketball team captain Taurai Chitsinde has described their defeat to South Africa in the AfroBasket qualifiers play-offs as a painful experience.

Chitsinde and his troops narrowly missed on qualification for the African Championships set for August in Congo Brazzaville, when they went down to South Africa by just five points in a two-match play-off in Johannesburg on Friday and Saturday.

They lost the first game 67-74 and won the second one 70-68 but it was not enough to earn them the ticket to the championships as they needed to win by eight points.

Speaking to our Harare Bureau yesterday, Chitsinde, who captained the side to their debut appearance at the AfroBasket Championships in 2015 said he was disappointed about the outcome of their close contest against the South Africans.

“I think in terms of play we did great. Yes we weren’t able to do right adjustments timely in the first game but we did well in the second game. It could have been great to have similar performance in the first game as we did in the second game.

“Rightfully, so we didn’t get the desired outcome the difference just being five points. That was sore, that was really sore. Overall I think the boys were great,” said Chitsinde.

Going forward the 31-year-old said there is need to support not just basketball but sport in general and he remains optimistic of the future.

“We are blessed with talent. We had not had the level of investment or priority for basketball but just recently we have had incredible support.

“Recommendation now will be that we have to keep supporting basketball, we have to keep supporting sport to be able to be playing internationally . . . all the way from junior level going up.

“And as long as we keep competing at junior level that’s the Under-16 to 18, which we compete incredibly (well) even against some of Africa’s finest, if we have that consistency right through to senior level in the near future, I am very confident that we should have a promising dominant team that can compete on the African continent and give us results,” said Chitsinde.

The championships scheduled for August 19 to 30 will see 16 countries battling it out for the honours.

So far 14 countries Morocco, Tunisia, Mali, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Egypt, Uganda, Angola, Mozambique, Congo-Brazzaville, Nigeria and South Africa have qualified for the tournament.

Nigeria are the reigning champions after beating Angola in the finals in 2015.

The remaining two spots will be determined by wildcards and Basketball Union of Zimbabwe president, Addison Chiware on Sunday said they are lobbying for one of the two wild card, which he is confident of securing.