LEEDS (Julio Chitunda's African Message) - It's a matter of time until South Sudan becomes a Top-5 team in Africa. Can they? 

Over the past three years, the Top-5 places in African basketball have invariably been held by five former and current African champions  Angola, Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia. Those are the countries that qualified for the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup in China.

It raises the question: Is South Sudan in the same level of these five teams. They are not yet, but, again, it's a matter of time.

The damage that South Sudan caused in Window 2 of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 African last week in Dakar where they arrived as underdogs completely changed the perspective of the so-called small teams in a sense that they beat the continent's best team.

Sooner or later South Sudan would make their basketball power and talent known. And beating the reigning African champions Tunisia, a team that didn't know what a defeat taste was like in Africa since 2018 said a lot about the threat that South Sudan poses to the continent's heavyweights. 

 
We need to go back to the Pre-Qualifiers for the 2021 AfroBasket to understand where this South Sudan team comes from and why resilience has been South Sudan's strongest weapon. They weren't supposed to be in the position that they are now if they weren't resilient and didn't believe in their potential.

January 2020 (Nairobi, Kenya): 

During FIBA Africa Zone 5 Pre-Qualifiers, South Sudan defeated Somalia, Burundi, Eritrea and Tanzania before losing to eventual champions, hosts Kenya 74-68 in a highly-contended game. That result saw Kenya through to the AfroBasket Qualifiers while South Sudan were eliminated.

October 2020 (Yaounde, Cameroon):

South Sudan had a second chance to qualify for the 2021 AfroBasket when FIBA introduced a Three-Nation Invitational Tournament in October 2020 in Yaounde to determine the last team to complete the AfroBasket Qualifiers line-up. That Invitation Tournament was launched to cover the absence of the Zone 3 Qualifiers. 

South Sudan vs Cape Verde, October 2020, Yaounde

And against all the odds, frontrunners South Sudan stumbled against Cape Verde, who eventually beat Chad to secure the only ticket available for the 2021 edition of the AfroBasket Qualifiers. Again, South Sudan saw their chances of debuting in FIBA Africa's flagship tournament slip through their fingers. 

November 2020

Three weeks before the start of the 2021 AfroBasket Qualifiers, Algeria - who won the two-game Pre-Qualifiers series against Cape Verde - withdrew alleging that COVID restrictions affected the team's preparations.

As the best second-placed team from the Invitational Tournament in Yaounde, South Sudan were the obvious choice to replace Algeria.

Placed in Group D of the AfroBasket Qualifiers, South Sudan faced Nigeria, Rwanda and Mali. 

 
By the end of the AfroBasket Qualifiers, South Sudan finished second in Group D with a 3-3 mark, a result that ensured them their first-ever AfroBasket ticket, and, more importantly, it saw them through to the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 African Qualifiers with a chance to qualify for next year's World Cup.

August-September 2021, Kigali, Rwanda

South Sudan players celebrate a win agains neighbouring Uganda

South Sudan couldn't have had a better AfroBasket debut. To go all the way to Quarter-Finals in their first AfroBasket appearance, that was a message sent out loud to the rest of the African basketball fraternity. 

December 2021

And by the time the FIBA World Rankings were updated in December of last year, South had improved 12 places to sit at No.14 on the continent.

February 2022

South Sudan close the first round of Group D undefeated in three games after wins over Cameroon, Rwanda and Tunisia.

"Tunisia is a team that we we want to be like. To go four years undefeated, and win that many games, that's not easy to do," said South Sudan Associate Head Coach Luol Deng, who has been the mastermind behind his native country's rise in African basketball.

Do they have to win an African Championship title first to reach the continent's Top-5 places? 

South Sudan's results in Dakar shouldn't be a surprise. And if South Sudan secure one of the five tickets for African teams for the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023, it will be the biggest transformation in the African basketball's landscape in a long time. 

Julio Chitunda
FIBA

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