Tour to help Zodiac team development
THE tour set for the Zodiac Basketball Club to Australia is expected to help prepare and develop players for the national team.
Team coach Alex Fong said they hoped for some players to feed into the national teams as development players and to also getting other overseas invite opportunities for the club.
“We also wish to keep the team together and work closely with Basketball Fiji drawing on their expertise like from coach Laisiasa Puamau and others,” Fong said.
“Like with some sports due to age category competitions we can hope to keep moving forward for the players and basketball as a whole.
“As a young team, confidence and fear is also something our players face and this can only come with more experience so constant encouragement and motivation is always on offer to our players from their coaches, managers and also their supportive parents.
“We are also fortunate to have a sports psychologist spending time with our players as a team and as individuals to help them overcome this and prepare mentally for the competition ahead.”
Fong said training was going well for both teams.
“We have come off a few team bonding exercise and camps to prepare our players mentally for the tour. The challenge for court availability is always there with basketball but we have managed to secure great support from Yat Sen School where 95 per cent of the players attend.
“Fitness and technical preparations since June has seen our players training early in the mornings and in the evenings six days a week.
“We would like to say thank you again to the sponsors without their generosity it will be an impossible task to develop these players. We look forward to bring more like minded people on board so that together with Basketball Fiji, other clubs, players, supporters and businesses.
“We hope that they will all come together to help turn the sport around and create a big player base, competition and turn basketball into a national sport,” he said.