No USSA for RU Titans

On Freedom Day the Rhodes University Titans, men’s and women’s basketball teams took on the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University for a position in the University Sports South Africa (USSA) event. Despite the effort expended and the cheering Rhodents present at the game, they both came up short in qualifying for USSA.

The NNMU men's team beat Rhodes 69-55, although the hosts did not go down without a fight, as the first quarter was locked at 23-23 and NNMU leading at the half, having by just 33-26. The visitors then took the game away from Rhodes in the third quarter.

Rhodes Titans team captain Owami Dhlamini admitted the team did not play to the best of their ability, and that the team would only finish third in the Eastern Cape USSA league (barring the results of the rest of the games still to be played), missing out on the 2017 USSA tournament in June. Despite the outcome of the game, Dhlamini nominated Tashinga Gudza as the player of the match. Rookie Gudza has taken on the role of one of the leading scorers and “he never hangs his head and handles pressure well”.

Dhlamini hopes to see the current team which consists of many young players, build strong team cohesion and aim to qualify for USSA next year.

The Rhodes women’s team went down 42-27, also to NMMU. The NMMU women held an early 11-6 lead after the first quarter, but at half time NNMU more than doubled the score to 25-12.

By the end of the third quarter Rhodes appeared to be beaten. Rhodes team captain Lerato Ratshefola said: “It was an incredibly difficult game” but noted that as a team they had their ups and down’s on the court.

Ratshefola also felt that there was a lack of coordination and that the team needed more practice leading up to this game. She said that from the Rhodes side, Nomonde Simelane was the player of the match. Said Vanessa Mwangi the NMMU team captain: “the team (NMMU) played quite well.” She complimented the structure of the Rhodes team, even as the lost kicked hosts out of USSA tournament.

While both Rhodes Basketball 1st teams are out of this year’s USSA tournament, they have plans to continue their training and develop better team cohesion ahead of next year’s USSA league.