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Nkosilathi Sibanda, Sports Reporter

BASKETBALL teams in Matabeleland North Province have started preparations for the start of their Super Six League with a pre-season tournament and technical meeting slated for Hwange next month.

The league bounces off on September 30 and has Madumabisa Titans, Black Hornets, Royal Eagles, Ghetto Magics, Victoria Falls Panthers and Mosi Development as the participating teams.

The meeting, as the league’s administrator Penrick Ndlovu revealed, was to deliberate on key strategies that that will help grow competition among the teams and to also facilitate how best to have more teams participating.

“Basketball in Matabeleland North is poised for growth, as teams playing in Super Six League are on course to hold a technical meeting whose thrust is on the growth of the game.

“During this off-season break, all teams are expected to identify players whom they want to register. This window will give teams an opportunity to fully prepare their players,” said Ndlovu.

He said the meeting would pave the way for the pre-season tournament whose theme will be about anti-doping and drug awareness.

“This meeting is also meant to come up with dates proposed for invitational tournaments, training camps for junior players, officials and referees’ training. We will also discuss on how best to administer clubs, player registration and payment of affiliation fees. This will also give us time to promote anti-doping and drug awareness to all athletes during training sessions. The pre-season tournament will be held on September 16.

“In past seasons we realised that teams need support in terms of marketing and updating of player database. We have to fix that,” said Ndlovu.

He implored communities in Lupane, Dete and Victoria Falls to support their league by forming developmental teams that will in turn be a feeder to big teams in the province.

“We want to be a league that will promote basketball in Matabeleland North. So far teams that make up the Super Six League come from Hwange, Victoria Falls and some players from Dete. We would want to spread to Lupane and other built up areas so as to attract talented players. One of our mandates is to promote participation of youths and in particular the Girl Child. We also want to have more new referees being trained,” he said.