Basketball: AfroBasket 2013-Seychelles in action in second game today |19 February 2013

After they were supposed to clash with Zambia last night, the country’s men’s national team play Botswana today and will meet hosts Mozambique tomorrow in the four-team round-robin league.

The four teams will then move to the semifinals where the group winners will meet the last-placed team, and the runners-up will clash with the third place finishers.
The two losing semifinalist will meet in the third place play-off match on Friday February 22 and the final between the winners of the two last-four encounters is scheduled for Saturday February 23.

The winners of the tournament will qualify for the Afro-Basket 2013 in Abidjan, Ivory Coast from August 20-31.
Other countries who were to take part in the zone 6 qualifiers but are not are Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Namibia, Malawi, Lesotho, and South Africa.
Angola, who have won the men’s Afro-Basket a record 10 times – in 1989, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009 – form part of zone 6 but will not take part in the qualifiers after receiving automatic qualification for finishing as losing finalists at the last competition in Madagascar in 2011.

The Seychelles men’s team are taking part in the zone 6 qualifiers as request by Fiba-Africa after not receiving automatic qualification from zone 7 as previously said.
The country was to host the zone 7 qualifiers but all zone 7 countries – Mauritius, Madagascar, Comoros and Djibouti – did not show an interest in taking part.

Fiba Africa’s Julien Farran told FIBA.com the preparations in Ivory Coast “are going as planned”, although they are working with the organising committee to decide “small organisational details”.

This is Ivory Coast’s second chance to host Africa’s highest men’s basketball tournament in the past two years, as the country was forced to hand over the 2011 AfroBasket to Madagascar due to political turmoil that affected the country.

The winners and runners-up of the women’s tournament will qualify for the 16-team 2014 FIBA World Championship for Women in Turkey, while the top-3 teams in the men’s event will qualify for the 24-team 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup in Spain.

G. G.