Stuart Hess at Sunbet Arena
A depressing week in the Kalahari Conference will conclude for the Joburg Giants this afternoon, with nothing more than pride at stake in their final game at the Sunbet Arena.
The Giants delivered a listless display in front of another hyped audience, going down 110-72 to defending champions Al Ahly of Libya, which knocked them out of playoff contention.
It was the largest margin of defeat suffered by any team this week.
The Giants are yet to win a game, and unless Petro Luanda — their opponents in the final game of the Conference this evening — are in a generous mood, the number in the wins column for the home team will remain zero.
The competition has been a class above anything the Giants have faced in qualifying for this tournament, giving credence to head coach Flosh Ngwenya’s comment earlier in the week that Season 6 of the BAL was ”a different beast completely”.
Even Al Ahly took time to come to terms with the pace and skill this year, losing their first two games but recovering to win their last three to secure one of the four play-off spots that were up for grabs.
For Giants captain Pieter Prinsloo, it’s been a particularly awful return to the city where he was born.
Having hoped to show off for friends and family, Prinsloo has looked lethargic all week but cut a dreary figure last night after starting on the bench. In the 16 minutes he was on the floor, he failed to score, grabbed just three rebounds, and committed one foul.
The Giants may have tripped over themselves, but the week has been another great success for the BAL, which has hosted one of its conferences in Tshwane for three years running.
Last night saw the largest crowd of the week, and the fact that they stayed and remained enthusiastic despite the outcome being a blowout, was another illustration of how much excitement there is for the sport in South Africa.
On one level, the Tigers’ tale sounds like a great underdog story.
The highlight of the week was produced earlier in the afternoon by RSSB Tigers point guard Craig Randall II, who scored a competition record 54 points in his team’s 104-92 victory against the Dar City Thunder of Tanzania.
Randall, 29, a starter for the Wisconsin Herd, which plays in the NBA’s development feeder competition, the G League, also poured in 11 three-point shots, another record for the BAL.
It was a stunning performance from arguably the best player on show at the Sunbet Arena. He’d already scored 37 points in the tournament’s opening game against Al Ahly and followed that with 39 against the Giants. “My teammates and my coaches put more trust in me than I could ask for,” said Randall.
“I don’t take that for granted, which makes it easy to go out there and just have fun. The scoring is part of the game; I really don’t care about it. I’d much rather have wins. We’ve already done something that no one thought we could do — and we had only a week to prepare.”
On one level, the Tigers’ tale sounds like a great underdog story. Their place in the competition was only confirmed 10 days before the start. Rwanda’s original representatives for the competition, Armée Patriotique Rwandaise Basketball Club (ARP), were thrown out because of US sanctions against the Rwandan Army, which runs the team.
The Tigers had finished fifth in the Rwandan League last year, but were then roped in to replace ARP. Besides having the pick of Rwanda’s best talent, they also had six ARP players, including Randall, join them with members of the ARP coaching staff. “I don’t want to get into the politics,” Tigers head coach Henry Mwinuka said about ARP’s banning.
“But to get the Tigers to be competitive, calling up some of the ARP players and getting help from the coach made the most sense, because there was so little time to prepare.”
It has paid dividends with the Tigers, who’ve won four out of four games, ensuring there will be a home team when the playoffs tip off in Kigali at the end of May.
“My focus is on winning the championship for the country, and if that means I’ve got to score points to do it, that’s what I’ll do,” said Randall.
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