NTOKOZO ZONDO 
TuksBasketball men competed in the Varsity Basketball tournament and finished second in the league. The tournament comprised of 8 rounds taking place from the 4^th to the 13^th of October. These were all played in the Wits Multipurpose Hall. The team won 5 of the 8 games they played. The tournament was the final event of the 2019 season and Ludwig Gerdes, the team captain and TuksBasketball chairperson sat down with PDBY to discuss performance in tournament, season goals, accomplishments and highlights of the season.

Gerdes describes the participation of TuksBasketball as an “extremely beneficial” experience further explaining the significance of the clubs involvement, “Only the top 8 universities in the country qualify for the tournament and it is arguably the most competitive platform for university basketball. Participating in such a competitive environment leads to the team improving with each game.”

TuksBasketball lost their 1st game kicking off the tournament on shaky ground but went on to win their 2nd game. They then lost their 3^rd game then achieved a four game consecutive winning streak to secure their place in the final and coming second overall. Gerdes reviewed the performance of the team, “I am very pleased with our overall performances. Even the losses we suffered were taken as lessons to improve in the upcoming games.” Gerdes further detailed what would be approached differently next time, “In the future, I would like to focus more on conditioning in order to avoid fatigue in such a compressed and demanding tournament.” Although no awards were given for man of the match or MVP, Gerdes spotted some remarkable talent from the squad, “I would say that each and every player rose to the occasion. There were a few key players that did excel throughout the tournament including; Emmanuel Shine, Lungelo Dlamini and Akinbiyi Odunlade, dominating in  statistics such as points and rebounds.”

During the season the club achieved the following two accomplishments: finishing top 4 in the Gauteng University Basketball League and making the finals of Varsity Basketball. In conjunction to those two accomplishments, Gerdes reveals that, “Furthermore we feel that the team has grown exponentially and we look forward to the performance of the team in 2020.”

Results
Round 1: 55-56 Loss to VUT
Round 2:76-69 win against Wits
Round 3: 56-52 loss to UKZN
Round 4:78-48 win against NWU-Vaal
Round 4:73-68 win against UJ
Round 6: 86-75 win against UWC
Round 7:81-65 win against UCT
Round 8: 64-57 loss in the final to UJ