Cheikh Sarr, the national basketball team head coach has pointed out lessons that Rwanda can learn from the rise of South Sudan in continental basketball. Despite being a young team, South Sudan are continuing to make good progress, and are fast positioning themselves to become an African powerhouse. In the recently concluded FIBA World Cup qualifiers, they finished on top of Group B having won all their 3 games against their opponents who included Tunisia – the defending champions of the Afrobasket tournament, Rwanda and Cameroon. “South Sudan government and Basketball federation worked for about five years to grow the team and the players. Now they are ready,” Sarr said in an interview. “We need to do the same. We have young players like Stephane Manzi, Emile Galois Kazeneza, Marius Tresor Ntwari. We have to nurture these boys to bring energy to the team,” he added. He noted that his team will be embarking on preparing for the next window of the qualifiers scheduled for June. He said they will put up efforts that can help them win all the three games they will play so that they make up for the losses they made in the first window. “If you lost three times, you have to win three times,” he said. The national basketball team had a FIBA World Cup qualifier first window to forget as they did not win a single game. They put up spirited performances but lost by fair margins to South Sudan, Tunisia and Cameroon.
