The Cape Town Tigers arrived back home on Thursday after a successful trip to Egypt where they earned a spot in the Basketball Africa League (BAL) playoffs after beating teams from South Sudan and Cameroon.
Local fans welcomed the South African and Southern African Regional Club Basketball Champions home at the Cape Town International Airport on Thursday.
Head Coach Raphael Edwards said it was amazing to see the fans when they stepped off the plane.
“We will rest up till Monday and then we will get back to the grind so that we can prepare for the playoffs (in Rwanda),” he says.
“In Egypt, we played in the Nile Conference (in Cairo) where we finished third.
“We were playing teams that have over 50 years of history while we were only formed in late 2019, so it was an amazing achievement to qualify for the next round.”
The Tigers went down 61-90 to Petro DE Luanda (Angola) and 77-101 to Al Zamalek (Egypt) before coming back strongly to beat Fap Yaounde (Cameroon) 73-70 and Cobra Sport Club (South Sudan) 83-79.
Edwards, 46, who was born in Brooklyn, New York, and played professionally for 10 years in Portugal, Argentina, Hong Kong as well as Dubai, said it was a no-brainer when he was offered to coach the Tigers in 2019.
“When I heard the NBA (American basketball association) was starting up a league in Africa I researched Cape Town and I knew it was an opportunity I had to take.
“The basketball scene in South Africa definitely has a lot of potential but it needs young, fresh thinking and ambitious people to fulfil it.
“From what I have seen, those people are here so the future definitely looks bright and it can only grow stronger.”
In May, the Tigers – who train at UCT and Khayelitsha – will be heading to Rwanda to face Tunisian side US Monistar in the quarter-finals.
“We have a few things to work on but we are confident that we can go all the way at the playoffs and come home with the title,” says Edwards.
“Most of the guys in the team are from South Africa while we have two from the US, one from Congo and another from Central African Republic.
“The mood in the team is great and we feel confident that we can win.”
junior.bester@inl.co.za