Stan Gumbo, Basketball Writer
BASKETBALL in Bulawayo is back in action and so are the fans. Since March of 2020, there were no basketball games, due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. But this season, fans are back in the stands along with new protocols in place.
“The bulk of our fan base has wanted to come back together. They see it as a safe atmosphere and a safe environment,” said Bulawayo Basketball Association (BBA) president, Sinda Mono
The BBA is doing what they can to continue that fan feeling.
“Give them that confidence to come here in a safe and healthy environment,” said Mono.
The BBA has already hosted two very successful tournaments and gone four rounds into league games. Some teams from the 2019-2020 season which failed to end due to Covid-19 induced lockdowns have faltered and failed to register for the current season.
However, the effect of their demise was softened by the registration of new teams to fill up the gaps.
Fans have also returned to watch the local albeit under strict Covid protocols as dictated by Government through the Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) which include masking up, maintaining social distancing and producing vaccination cards upon arrival at match venues.
The Bulawayo basketball association who run the BBL have also ensured that players, coaches and match officials have also been vaccinated and abide by Covid protocols before, during and after matches.
But most importantly the fans are happy to be back at Khanyisile Basketball Courts and vociferous as ever after a dunk or a crazy cross over or even a blocked shot! That is what basketball is about: high velocity action, loud crowds and tons of good basketball!
The first seven weeks of the 2021-20221 basketball season in Bulawayo were filled with upsets and thrilling endings that busted many brackets across the league. During the two tournaments hosted in the province so far, the league pre-season tournament to kick off the new season and last weekend’s Lakers Foundation Gender Based Violence-themed invitational tournament so teams from Harare and Mutare travel to participate, literary giving a thumbs up to the quality of the local game and the general atmosphere that pervades Bulawayo basketball.
But for fans, it is. And the safety measures as well as Government protocols helps with that. Mono says the association is doing their part and so should the fans by wearing a mask. In fact, it’s a requirement inside all BBA sanctioned basketball venues in the city. Masks must be worn at all times except for when fans are eating or drinking.
“That is a policy in our league and at our venues. I encourage our fans to do that and if they have a concern about that, and don’t want to attend, that is certainly one of the options.”
Seven weeks of games have been played so far with these new features and protocols in place. Mono said, so far, a success.
“Looking back to bringing back the community into Khanyisile Basketball Courts to hear the great roar that Khanyisile and Bulawayo basketball is all about,” he said.
After two years of only watching National Basketball Association (NBA) basketball and nothing of the local game, ball is back on local shores. Back in action for the first time since March last year, the BBA and its players are adjusting to playing with new regulations in place and experimenting with new approaches to the game.
The BBA has leaned into its starting-over reality, judging by the numerous signs all over the building that display its #WearYourMask slogan. With the clamour of fans, chatter among the players is not audible except during lulls in fans or between chants of “de-fense, de-fense.”
“There’s a lot of crowd energy, so the energy is feeding the players as well,” said Brian Nel, a Mavericks fan during the Lakers Tournament last weekend.
“It feels like basketball again,” Nel said.
“I think guys are now getting into a flow and knowing this is the real thing,” he added.
People seem happy, if slightly stunned. Aside from the specifics of vaccination—“Which one?” “First or second?” “How did it feel?”—the most common conversation is an effusion of sheer disoriented relief. At Khanyisile, many fans walked in, stopped mid-stride, lift their arms, look at their companions, and say, “Can you believe it?”
But, in the BBA, angst has made its own return, arm in arm with the supposed normalcy of league-wide live spectatorship. The Lakers lost to the Mavericks in Game One, a very exciting and physical encounter that could have gone either way. For basketball fans, the flip side of a favourite team’s renewed relevance is the inevitable accrual of resentment toward opposing players who happen to be good.
Lakers’ players like to pump up and make faces and do little routines when their shots go down and something in the cut of this jib makes them equally irritating and fun to root against.
“It got real at the end. Mavericks outplayed us on the court and out sang us in the stands,” said one Lakers player.
The crowd that turned up for Game One and every other game since then has been exuberant and hopeful, glad and giddy and somewhat nervous to be there in support of their beloved sport and respective teams. The crowds are sometimes hardened by a tough loss; there is a palpably despairing edge in the building, only streaked through with joy.
The great skill of the Khanyisile crowd is its occasional capacity for unison. A chant starts up in the heights of the arena and, seemingly in seconds, spreads around the place, until the voices are one livid voice, expressing approval or dripping bile. The multitude becomes its own organism. Now its mood was heterogeneously sour, and souring.
Ecstatically crowded as it sometimes gets, Khanyisile empties out fast. After whatever victory has been had by whatever team is in ascendancy on the night, the crowd roared so loudly and protractedly that one could feel the floor under their feet tremble and slightly sway. But, only a minute or two later, there was a flood of bodies toward the exits, and, soon, the weird, waiting glow of empty seats and aisles. A few kids hang back, drunk on victory, trying to shoot or dunk like favourite players. Otherwise, the place is so quiet that it could give a child the creeps.
Fanhood, fundamentally, is controlled enmity. Jubilation pays its price in senseless antagonism. Even those of us who abhor friend-enemy distinctions in politics become little people when watching sports.
The carpark is a mess—a riotous yet not particularly menacing one, to be honest; after soaking it in, undiminished, for an hour or so, many long for home. As they headed that way, many will think about the last thing they had seen before exiting the Khanyisile, which was, conversely, a moment of anomalous stillness: two young players stripped down to tank tops and shorts, taking practice shots, already preparing for the next game.
Bulawayo is ballin’ again. And what a feeling it is for basketball!
