L. MathekaBasketball coaches bemoan long period of inactivity
Reading Time: 2min | Tue. 31.01.23. | 08:20
Some teams started their second leg action this year while others have played seven matches into the second part of the regular league.
Several coaches in the Kenya Basketball Federation (KBF) top tier league have called for better planning of fixtures to avoid long layoffs that affect teams' performance.
As the league made a comeback this month after almost the December break, some coaches feel that the current state of affairs is unsustainable and needs to change.
Coach David Maina, speaking after his side Equity Bank Hawks picked a slim 40-38 win over Zetech Sparks said that part of the team's unimpressive performance was due to the long break they had ahead of the league return and before the league break.
"We need to work on our offense. Our defense did well but offensively we were poor and this is a result of not having matches regularly. The last time we played in the league was in November and that is almost two months ago.
These breaks affect the performance of top teams and that is an area the federation should work on so a team does not stay for more than three weeks without having a competitive game," Maina opined.
On the same breath, his Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) counterpart Sammy Kiki had similar sentiments after playing two matches this weekend and it emerged that the side would be out of action for the next two weeks.
"The team is just getting back in training so playing this weekend and going for another long break is not ideal. We need to keep training as a unit and having no matches for a while interferes with that and eventually, with any momentum that had gained from our previous fixture. We are also forced to play back-to-back when we finally get a match, especially now that we are tryingto catch up with the rest of the league teams in terms of matches played," Kiki explained.
Fixtures for the next two weekends have been released. By mid February, the top men's teams will average 18 matches played while KPA will still be on 13.
This could mean a fixture congestion for the dockers or other teams suffering the long layoffs as KPA play catch-up on numbers of matches played.
