Basketball Federation of Papua New Guinea

The national federation has released its activity plan for the year, with the major focus on establishing and building competitions at the men’s and women’s senior level.

The FIBA Melanesian Cup will be held in Port Moresby in late September this year and prior to that BFPNG will the host national championships for men and women in July.

CEO of the BFPNG, Joel Khalu said the federation will also be rolling out its brand new men’s & women’s national “Super League” competitions, before the PNG Games takes centre stage in November.

Chief Executive Officer of the BFPNG, Joel Khalu said they will work in partnership with the PNG Sports Foundation’s High Performance department and the PNG Olympic Committee to deliver free up-skilling workshops next week at the Taurama Aquatic & Indoor Complex.

He said the organizations will be combining the delivery of two dynamic courses over three-days. The first being the Oceania Sports Education Program (OSEP) Community Coach & Official Course and the Hoops for Health (H4H) Coach Accreditation Course.

A coaching clinic was piloted at Juni Primary School in Hela Province last weekend.

The clinic saw 16 grades six and eight students with four teachers participate in the clinic. It included basketball drills, techniques, life skills training and health education.

BFPNG extended its invitation to the Papua New Guinea Olympic Committee (PNGOC) to promote the three Olympic values of Respect, Friendship and Excellence under its Olympic Values Education Program.

Along with the usual on-court basketball action at the Taurama Aquatic & Indoor Centre, the Blood Drive set up four beds, collecting blood from 5pm to 9pm.

BFPNG Chief Executive Officer, Joel Khalu said that Twilight Basketball provided the perfect platform to help promote the Youth Blood Drive initiative.

“We've had more than 300 people attend each Twilight Basketball session over the last month and that’s a great crowd for us to promote healthy lifestyle messages to.

Joel Khalu says this is remarkable, after seeing the number of participants exceeding the expected number.  

The program attracted a lot of participants in just a week, due to it being open to people of all ages.

"We actually had a number of older players comment about the vibe and how they've never been part of a sporting environment like that in PNG before. That feedback was really great to hear," Khalu said.

"To have 319 participants in week one is a huge accomplishment.

Players were selected from the BFPNG U18 national championships last week in the nation’s capital.

BFPNG Executive Officer Joel Khalu said that finalizing the selections was a tough challenge.

“Because the standard of play was so high and most games were very close, both the men’s and women’s selection panels had an extremely difficult time confirming their final squads.

“With competition for spots being so tight, I think that reflects just how much basketball talent we have throughout the country in this particular age-group.”