​​​​​​Things have changed quite significantly for the Maties Basketball Club since it was named one of the High Performance sport codes at Stellenbosch University (SU) recently.

Under new head coach Zarko Krkeljas (men's team) and assistant coach Aggrey Ofula (women's team) both teams stand a chance to qualify for the University Sport South Africa tournament. The all-important Western Cape qualifying games (for both men and women) will take place this coming Friday. Maties are playing out for third and fourth place and need to finish third in the region to qualify.

(Transportation to UCT on Friday is available to a limited number of supporters. Book here)

The club is made up of three teams: the men's A team, consisting of players with established basketball skills; the men's B team, a developmental and recreational team for students who want to play basketball recreationally or are interested in learning to play; and the women's team, which welcomes both established and new players.

"Because it is a popular sport around the world, our basketball club consists of local and international players and is an excellent indicator of diversity at Maties Sport. To raise awareness of basketball locally, we are planning to add developmental programmes for local youth as well as a residence league which will bring basketball to our student body and hopefully help raise basketball to new heights," said Krkeljas.

"As a club, we were continually competing against universities with well-established basketball programmes, such as UCT and CPUT. As a newly established club team we were always considered underdogs. Even though our club was able to offer respectable performances in the local league in the past, we were not able to qualify for USSA competitions, which is one of our primary goals, along with becoming a Varsity Sports team."

Krkeljas was appointed Maties' coach in April this year.

"I have played basketball all my life and have been involved as a coach or trainer for the past 6-7 years – in the USA, South Korea and now South Africa. I started volunteering at Maties last year in June when I first arrived at SU as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Sport Science. At that time my role was to coach and assist with the men's teams. As a result of basketball achieving HP status and our newly set goals of becoming a Varsity Sports team, I was officially appointed as head coach."

Being part of the HP programme will take the sport and players to a new level, Krkeljas believes.

"As a sport scientist and coach I believe that the HP programme is a well thought out and complete support system for individual athletes and a team as a whole. Individual potential or talent play a significant role in becoming a good athlete, but to create the best student-athlete we need to create a support system starting with coaches, trainers, sport scientists, and educators. Maties Sport has created this system and now that we as a basketball team have access to its services, I believe that it will significantly contribute to my players successfully transitioning from club players to student-athletes.

"I am confident this transition will yield significant results in our performance and contribute to the overall goal of Maties Sport of having one of the top sport programmes in the country."

All HP sports have been set the overall goal of being a top 3 club in all competitions.

"In order to achieve this, our immediate goal is to qualify for the USSA tournament. Once there, finishing in the top 8 will make the men's team a Varsity Sports team. Although I was appointed midway into the qualifying tournament and after two defeats, we were able to win our next two games with an upset again UWC, which puts us into the semi-finals of the qualifying tournament. Winning our next game would, against all odds, qualify us for the USSA tournament for the first time in Maties' history."