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Winning Sportmanship

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he recent Singapore Women Basketball Invitation 2005 tournament served as an excellent platform for the Women’s National Basketball team to hone their skills and at the same time foster stronger ties with the participating international teams.

What is noteworthy, according to Oon Jin Teck, CEO of the Singapore Sports Council is that the Basketball Association of Singapore (BAS) has been exploring avenues to cultivate sporting excellence and encourage active sports

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>> These are certainly exciting times for women’s basketball as the local basketball fraternity gathered at the Singapore Women Basketball Invitation 2005 (SWBI 2005) tournament to rally behind the Singapore Women’s National Basketball team. Much camaraderie and friendship was also forged with the international teams. By Joy-Anne Tan. participation through the initiation of events such as the SWBI 2005 tournament. The event has certainly enlivened the local basketball scene and brings it a step closer towards the long term objective of developing the competitive basketball game in Singapore.

Skilful Competitors The Singapore national team was up against experienced players from three regional teams: The West Adelaide Bearcats, Indonesian

National Women’s Basketball Team and Taipei Hai-Shan High School team.

The Singapore national team, consisted of eight players who were holding day jobs and three full-time professional players.

Despite being perceived as the underdogs due to their relative inexperience in playing international teams, the national players displayed a remarkable array of skills and their ‘can-do’ spirit was certainly commendable

HoopNews in the face of experienced and skilful competitors.

Sportmanship & Winning Sportsmanship and winning is about persistence, perseverance and both winning and losing with grace, good gamesmanship and dignity. The persistence and perseverance of players are key qualities that are desirable in competitive basketball games.

They can often make or break a team. “I remind myself that I am playing for my country and try to influence my team mates to keep going,” said Chiew Poh Leng, national team player, when asked about what keeps her going during an extremely demanding game.

Undeniably, mental strength is also an important attribute that is highly desirable of a competitive basketball player. Playing by the rules of the game and keeping a player’s cool at all times distinguishes the good from the mediocre.

For The Love Of The Game According to the Singapore national team’s head coach, Low Tong, training regularly and playing your heart out ‘for the love of the game’ are essential for both winning and achieving good sportsmanship.

Taking into consideration the fact that the majority of the Singapore players have to

balance work and training, Mr Low’s immediate and short-term goal is to get each individual team member to focus on ‘playing the game for the country’. With players committed to their best in training and believing in a shared purpose and destiny, he believes that great results can be achieved.

When it comes to a new generation of youth basketball players and the future of basketball in Singapore, West Adelaide Bearcats’ head coach, David Spears had this to say: “Start young and work on your basic ball handling skills such as dribbling and catching. This will give you the chance to be the best player that you can be. You’ve also got to play more games and more tournaments”.

He believes that there is great potential in the Singapore players and with more exposure through the tournaments; international Singapore team can go very far. He is honoured that the Australian West Adelaide Bearcats team was able to provide the Singapore National Women’s team with very good competition in their preparation for the SEA Games.

It is indeed heartening to see the vision that the BAS has for the local basketball fraternity bearing fruit through initiatives such as the SWBI 2005 tournament. Young basketball enthusiasts will have better reasons to keep their enthusiasm and fire for basketball alive.

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