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Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
HARARE province basketball clubs will converge at Belvedere Teachers’ College for the second Independence Trophy tournament starting tomorrow.

The event will see only clubs from Harare fighting for honours in the men and women’s sections in the two-day event slated for tomorrow and Sunday.

Last year the tournament featured men’s clubs only but this year they have opened doors for women.

In the men’s section there are 24 teams which will be divided into eight groups of three with the top team progressing to the quarter-finals while in the women’s category there are 10 teams that will be grouped into three pools.

Two pools will be made up of three teams and the other pool will be made up of four.

The top team in each group and the best runners-up will proceed to the semi-finals.

Chairman of the organising committee Tendai Zhakata said they will be rotating the tournaments from one province to another.

“We have another tournament coming, the May Day tourney, and it will be held in Gweru followed by the Africa Day in Bulawayo.

“So the idea is to rotate the various tournaments in different provinces with teams from the selected provinces participating.

“We think it’s a good idea because we are spreading the game of basketball to all provinces,” said Zhakata.

Zhakata said the tournament was meant to celebrate the country’s 35th Independence anniversary.

Harare Basketball League spokesperson Carlos Munda said they were looking forward to an interesting event.

“We expect a good weekend of basketball, but the much-awaited JBC-Cameo league game will not happen this weekend, so it will be on next weekend.

“We want to thank Tendai Zhakata for organising this tournament for such a worthy cause.

“We are also preparing for our award night as Harare Basketball League as we look forward to close the 2014-2015 season.

“It was a great year for us in the basketball community, we were the first team sport to qualify for the African Games.

“So we are grateful to everyone and we appeal to people to come and see how we develop talent,” said Munda.

Munda said there is need to expose women to more competition, hence the idea to involve women’s teams this year.

“Our women could not qualify for the African Games so we are trying to have them play more competition.

“We are trying to regroup our women for more competition,” Munda said.

Cameo are the defending champions and will be out to retain their title in the men’s section.

The winners in both sections will get $500 each.