The opening game of the Zone 3 U18 Afrobasket qualification saw Ghana play the host Ivory Coast on sunday. Ghana's U18 side who are playing together as a team for the first time in any tournament had to face their first competitive game on sunday.

Unlike the past this time around the team left Accra by road three days prior to the tournament and arrived on friday 30th June. This gave the team atleast a full day of practice and enough time to relax. The technical meeting took place on Saturday 31st June in Abidjan which is also the current host the seat of the FIBA AFRICA head quarters.

The Ghanian Team coached by Coach Daniel Sesu a Ghanaian born living in the UK were under pressure before even jump ball with the host team's home court advantage.  The Ivorians took full advantage of their position and mentained the pressure throughout the course of the game. The first half ended 26-8 advantage Ivory Coast with Ghana scoring only 4points in each of the first two quarters. The Ghanaian team never found a rythm to cool off the pressure, as result turned over the ball 36times which the ivorians took advantage off to score many of their points, unlike Ghana who couldnt take advantage of the host countries 20 turnovers. The total game turnovers showed the inexperience of both teams. The fuel power of the Ivorians cooled down in the last quater which gave Ghana little breathing room and ended the quarter 7 -9 in favor of Ghana. Final score ened 54 - 33 against Ghana. Nevertheless the top scorer of the game came from Ghana in the person of Cyril Clarke who ended the game with 16pts,6RBS,3Steals,and 3Assists.

With the game one lose Ghana now has to win two of it's remaining games to keep its chances of qualifying for the Grand finale in October alive. They will have to do that against the power house Nigeria and their fellow underdog country Liberia. Both of these countries have a stronger basketball culture and league running in their countries. We wish the team all the best in the rest of their games.

Ghana Team List that played on Sunday included:

CYRIL BANSAH
STEPHEN FOSTER
ADAMS RIYAZUDEN
TUNDEY EL-ALAWA
CYRIL CLARKE
ABDUL MUTALIB A
JULIAN MORGAN
MOHAMMED BAJIGAH
ABUBAKARI SULEMAN
DANIEL AYARNA

COACH: DANIEL SESU