JOHANNESBURG (Basketball Without Borders) - The 16th edition of Basketball Without Borders (BWB) Africa took place last week and the event - the NBA and FIBA's global basketball development and community outreach program - witnessed a first as the two bodies teamed up to hold an inaugural joint referees' camp.

Carl Jungebrand, FIBA Head of Refereeing, and Joe Borgia, NBA Senior Vice President of Replay & Referees Operations, presided over the training session which took place over three days (August 1-3) at the American International School of Johannesburg (AISJ).

After years of a close cooperation between the NBA and FIBA - on matters of rules and referees' training - holding this camp as part of BWB was a natural next step in order to help the development of offiicials in Africa.

The NBA and FIBA sent crews to work with nine active FIBA referees from the African continent selected by basketball's world governing body. The camp focused on individual officiating techniques and 3-person officiating and consisted of video analysis, on-court training, games officiating and providing feedback. The games played as part of BWB provided the perfect platform for the development and the referees displayed a very positive attitude and were ready to learn.

"BWB proved its great potential to organize a referees' clinic at the same time as players and coaches had their own activities," Jungebrand said. "The spirit of the camp was great and friendly for all participants and provided a profitable landscape to develop officiating in Africa. We're very happy and grateful for the smooth cooperation with the NBA's referees' operations and are confident that this type of initiative will generate more and more positive results in the future."

FIBA