Africa-Press – Lesotho. Lesotho’s Under-18 basketball team has endured a nightmare run at the ongoing African Union Sports Council (AUSC) Region 5 Youth Games. The hosts have been abysmal in losing every game and have often looked like toddlers at the youth championships.
There has been nowhere to turn for hope as both the boys’ and girls’ teams have greatly disappointed. The lowlight was the girls’ 116-2 loss to Angola on Monday but somehow the boys managed to do worse by losing 173-10 to Angola a day later.
While the heavy scores have been embarrassing, Lesotho’s ineptitude has been even more worrying. In their third game against South Africa, the girls’ side had no gameplan and you would have been forgiven for mistaking their gameplay for netball.
All Lesotho had to offer was long balls from one end to the other, but that failed to work for the entire 40 minutes. South Africa had two giant defensive players who won every hopeful long ball and were first to every loose ball.
Lesotho struggled mightily and went three quarters without scoring a single point. And it was not because they were not trying, they just were not good enough.
Not one ball came close to getting into the basket or even hitting the backboard, for that matter. South Africa dominated throughout and the only made basket for Lesotho came in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter.
Even though the performance was lethargic and dismayed locals inside Lehakoe supporting the team, it is the team’s coaches that left the worst taste in many people’s mouths.
The coaches remained seated in their technical area while their team was being put to the sword. They could not be bothered to lift the players up. On the other hand, their South African counterpart, whose team was winning comfortably, hardly sat down.
She roved up and down the touchline and kept imploring her players to keep going. Lesotho’s coaches, instead, were glued to their seats and looked out of place. Their body language was utterly uninspiring.
Speaking after the humiliation, head coach Thabang Letlala expectedly blamed the defeat on team’s poor preparations ahead of the games and the fact they were missing several players who had tested positive for Covid-19.
Only nine players were available for Monday’s game. Letlala tried to put a positive spin on things saying he and his staff cannot throw in the towel. Letlala claimed the team is one they can build on.
“It was a disappointing game, even the score we lost by (was disappointing), but our focus wasn’t on scoring,” Letlala continued.
“Our preparations were bad from the beginning, we struggled to get the players, we struggled to prepare. We managed to get 12 (players for the tournament) but today we played with nine.
It is difficult but we cannot throw in the towel, we have to at least start with this team and go forward. I think that’s the goal we should chase and achieve,” he added. Letlala insisted the players deserved credit for not giving up during their massacre by Angola.
“If you look at the score, we conceded (but) they didn’t give up, it means the players want to play, so if us as coaches give up on the kids, we wouldn’t be doing them any justice,” he said.
“If they want to continue the way they have been, even us (as coaches), after the (AUSC) games we shouldn’t sit-down, we should go to our LBA (Lesotho Basketball Association) offices and see how we can get help to start development.
” Letlala said he did not have to pick the players up. He said by scoring the two points against Angola, the players picked themselves up and now all the coaches can do is to keep encouraging them. The girls are not the only ones having a forgettable tournament. It is the same with the boys, and they too have lost all their games heavily.
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