Basketball: AfroBasket 2013-Seychelles beat Botswana ahead of Mozambique encounter |21 February 2013

Seychelles’ third game in the four-team round-robin league competition was last night against hosts Mozambique coached by Milagre Macome, while Zambia were to meet Botswana to decide the semifinal matchups.

Only Botswana were yet to garner a win in the competition after they also suffered a 19-105 drubbing by Mozambique in their opening game.
All four competing teams will 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 semifinalists will meet in the third place play-off match tomorrow 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.
Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Namibia, Malawi, Lesotho, and South Africa were also expected to take part in the qualifiers but did not make it to Mozambique.

Winners of the men’s Afro-Basket for a record 10 times – in 1989, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009 – Angola fall in zone 6, but are not taking 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 requested 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.

The winners and runners-up of the women’s AfroBasket tournament in Ivory Coast 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.