So, last weekend was the basketball U19 AISJ tournament. I can honestly say I have seen more basketball in one weekend than i have ever and its was extremely fun! The game is really exciting to watch as its very fast paced and the crowds were all upbeat-cheering and chanting their team on (i came away with a slightly sore throat!)
The tournament held at AISJ (American International School Johannesburg) and it is very plush-fees are about 2.5 times more than MaP and the facilities are insane. They include a swimming pool, 4 basketball courts, a small golf course, and lots of fields! The tournament has been running for 19 years and this year had 24 teams entered (the most ever)-12 schools with a boys and girls team each. They had come from very far-one was from Mozambique another from the Congo.
So Thursday we left at 11am but of course this is African departure time so it ended up being 11.30 that we left! The journey took quite a while so with stops we ended up arriving at about 6 at the hotel. I was very lucky and had my own room-a double bed-bliss!
Friday-this was the first day of matches and they were friendlys. The only thing that the resutls determined was the draw for who played who on Saturday-the actual tournament. The girls ended up loosing all their matches but the boys won all of theirs! I had the school camera with me and was in charge of taking shots for the yearbook-I am hoping to get hold of some so when i do i will put them on here!
Saturday-tournament time! The girls, having lost all of their games had their first match at 8am and won! Sadly their second game (the quarter finals) they lost. The boys didnt play till 12 as they had been ranked first after Fridays games. This meant, as the girls were out, there were alot of supporters for MaP aka a lot of cheering and chanting. The boys got all the way to the final which was against AISJ!
The final *duh duh duhhhh*. Wow this was so intense. It was played on the inside court which had a stand which was full with spectators-this included the teams that had stayed behind, all of which were supporting us! It was a VERY close game, we went up, then they scored, then we scored-all of us spent alot of time chanting! In the last 10 seconds (they have that clock on the scoreboard that counts down seconds)we were up by 3 points. We were all ready to run on but as the whistle went an AISJ guy threw the ball in an attempt to get a 3 pointer. We all thought we had won as once the whistle went we stopped watching but we then realised AISJ were celebrating as well and it was because the AISJ guy had got it in meaning they had come level with MaP! This resulted in a 3 minute extra time with both teams scoring but at the end it was still a tie! So ANOTHER 3 minutes were added to the clock. I cant remember the details (i just remember being very tense) but basically we were up by 1 but then they scored a basket in the last 20 seconds so they were then up by 1 (you get two points for a basket) and we just couldnt score in 20 seconds so we lost :( all the guys were completely gutted. Especially because, and i didnt realise this till after, a lot of the calls made by the reffs were a bit unfair towards MaP. One AISJ parent went up to Bruce at the end and said my kids on the winning team but you guys won that game. Alot of coaches from other teams thought that the 3 pointer shouldnt have been allowed as many believe it was after the whistle. Our guys were not very bitter about it though and neither was Bruce. There is another basketball tournament end of March which I think is when they are hoping to beat AISJ!
So a lot of drama and a very intense game-it reminded my of the rugby world cup final except this time there was no drop goal with seconds to go (or in this case, a basket!)
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