Wits basketball players on national duty
Wits Basketball Lady Bucks players, Modiegi Mokoka, Fortunate Bosega and Bronwyn Tyler are among the 12 players selected to represent the South African national basketball team in the upcoming FIBA Africa Zone VI qualifiers.
The Lady Bucks players were called up by the national squad after they performed well at the national senior provincial games held in September 2014 at Wits.
Through various intense training sessions and camps that ended in January they made the official squad that will be competing with teams from the southern hemisphere to qualify for the All African Games.
Motivation not an issue
Mokoka is “extremely excited” to be called up by the national team saying, “not many get the chance to do so.”
“It’s a goal most, if not all, serious participating athletes have. We kill ourselves in our respective fields to possibly be recognised one day. Motivation has never been an issue, striving to get better and compete overwhelmingly well is something inert with most athletes, myself included,” said Mokoka.
But Witsies won’t just be playing for South Africa, several other students will be playing for other African nations.
Yowana Nyangu, who plays for the Lady Bucks, will represent the Zimbabwean ladies team while Wits Buck’s Munyaradzi Andrew Gonese will represent the Zimbabwean men’s side. All five students will be in action in the FIBA Zone VI qualifiers in Zimbabwe this coming week.
An achievement unique to Wits
Mokoka, who is proud of her team, said: “Winning nationals then having our ladies represent their national teams is an achievement no other group in the university can acclaim”.
South Africa will start playing in the qualifier next week. They need to beat Zimbabwe and Botswana to move on.
