Newly-appointed Harare Basketball Association (HBA) president David Pick has high ambitions to try and bring back the sport to its former glory and one of his promises is to return the HBA knockout trophy after a 14-year hiatus.

By Freeman Makopa

“We are bringing back the HBA Knockout trophy. This knockout trophy will involve teams from both A and B leagues and we intend to make it exciting. It was last played around 2005, but then it was stopped due to lack of sponsorship,” he said.

Pick is determined to find funds to resuscitate the once popular competition.

In fact, he says there are potential funders who are willing to partner his association.

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“Right now, we have prospective sponsors and I think it’s high time we bring it (tournament) back.

It’s one of the things on my to-do list. I’m also looking forward to the decentralisation of basketball by spreading the sport to all four corners of Harare. More games will be played in Mbare, Mufakose, Dzivarasekwa, Mabvuku and Arcadia,” he said.

The former JBC, Varsity Leopards player said he is also looking forward to the unification of conflicting theories within the institution.

“The HBA is the biggest basketball playing province in Zimbabwe and I am honoured to be leading it. I have been involved in Basketball since 1995 as a player for Mbare Bulls under the late Maxwell Mangwiro.

“My biggest goal is to unify conflicting theories within Harare Basketball. Differences are good in any institution, but they have to be progressive. We all have to be united otherwise we perish. I have to be a listening president. I will be running with the theme ‘let’s make basketball great again’,” he added.

The HBA’s start to their season had a hiccup that affected the start of the first round of matches, but Pick’s executive managed to work things around and avoided what could have been a horrendous beginning to the new term.

“Week 1 has had its challenges, the biggest being games fixtured after 1600hrs. This was due to the load shedding schedule that is affecting most areas in Harare. I want to thank my executive committee for being innovative and always having that never say die attitude. We managed to buy LED flood lights. Though more work needs to be done in that area I feel that we are in the right direction.”