ZIMBABWE basketball team’s2017 FIBA Afrobasket Championships dream ended after back to back defeats to Central African Republic and Chad in the additional qualifier in Bamako, Mali.
Zimbabwe lost the additional qualifier, 55-79 to Central African Republic, and, 45-57 to Chad, to see their hopes of making a second appearance at the Afrobasket Championships go up in smoke.
This was Zimbabwe’s third attempt to try and secure a spot for the Afrobasket Championships but it just didn’t add up.
All that Zimbabwe needed was to win this tri-nation qualifier as FIBA Africa looked for a replacement for the Republic of Congo which withdrew its participation from the finals.
In total, Zimbabwe had six games, from the group stages to the additional qualifier, to try and sort out their qualification fortunes for the 2017 edition but this only yielded disappointments.
After failing to secure an automatic qualification from the group stages against Mozambique, Zimbabwe had another chance via Play-off which they lost to South Africa.
Zimbabwe only managed to win one game, 70-68, against South Africa in the campaign but this victory couldn’t erase the 142-137 aggregate which also dumped them out of the tournament.
This means Zimbabwe will have to wait until 2019 to have another shot at qualifying for the FIBA Afrobasket Championships.
Zimbabwe’s Afrobasket campaign results
Zimbabwe        68-80    Mozambique
Mozambique        85-65    Zimbabwe
South Africa        74-67    Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe        70-68    South Africa
CAR            79-55    Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe        45-57    Chad