After going down against Rwanda in the Classification game yesterday, Ghana had to play Guinea for the 11th & 12 place earlier today. Ghana and Guinea both came into this game with no wins in the tournament thus one team was going to end their loosing streak by the end of the game.

Preliminary games have ended and its time to fight for overall tournament positions which goes along way to rank a nation in the FIBA World Ranking. Ghana on friday 30th September at the Stade Du Pavillion arena will go into battle with Rwanda for a place in the 9th & 10th Position games.

After been the last country to arrive at the tournament the Black Hoop Queens had to quickly get themselves into game mode as two games was pending for them. The first game was a daunting task for Ghana and it was against the host nation Mali at the newly built basketball arena STADE DU 26 MARS recently commissioned by the Malian government.

The Ghana Women's National Team after several financial challenges to fund its trip to Mali finally arrived in Bamako Mali this evening at 5:30pm. The teams journey to Mali didn't come on a silver platter, as the GBBA had to split the entire team including its officials into two to enable them to pay for the trip.

After Ghana's initial game against the host nation Mali was pushed to sunday 25th September due to Ghana's inability to arrive in Bamako, Mali on friday due to financial challenges of the GBBA. Nevertheless the team has finally arrived in Bamako today at exactly 5:30pm without four of its players.

It's been nine months since Ghana qualified for the 22nd Africa Womens Basketball Championship 2011 hosted by Mali and it's also been the same period within which the Ghana National Sports Authority have known about Ghana's qualification. But unfortunatly Ghana's participation in this prestigious tournament has fallen to the deaf ears of the Government of Ghana.

As tournament day draws closer by the days the Ghana Women's Team have being keeping themselves busy with its first series of exhibition games which started on Thursday against Tudu Galaxy U18 Boys from the Galaxy Basketball Academy located in Tudu Accra. It was a close game but the Golden Hoop Queens managed a win by just a point. Game ended 25 - 24 in favor of the Ghana Women's Team.

As part of the build up for Afrobasket 2011 in Mali which is just days away, the Womens National Team the Black Hoop Queens are now set to start their series of exhition game to competitevely prepare them for the task ahead.

In the year of Ghana's participating the 22nd African Womens Basketball Championship Afrobasket 2011 the Ghana Basketball Association (GBBA) has set itself to getting back on track to raising the image of Ghana Basketball and this begins with the National Teams. Over the past decades since the Ghana Basketball Association was established it has always been women basketball that has put Ghana on the African basketball stage. One key to life's success which plays a major role in sporting success is to improve on your strengths and work on your weakness. Surprisenly one major strength of Ghana Basketball when it comes to competitions on the big stage is the Womens National Team " Black Hoop Queens". The Ghanaian Womens National has been the pride of Ghana Basketball and the GBBA is fixed on improving this reputation by scouting out and identifying and attracting Ghanaian Female Players abroad to beef up the various Womens National Teams.   

The work didn't end after qualification, the Ghana Basketball Association quickly called back the team after one month break for an open camp to work on individual skills and conditioning for the battle ahead in Mali. With no support whatsoever from government the Ghana Basketball Association(GBBA) is keen on executing its plans towards the tournament in Mali come september 23rd. The current team at the open camp is made up of players  based locally in Ghana.

The "Black Hoop Queens" of Ghana have qualified for the 22nd Women's Afrobasket 2011 Championship in Mali,Bamako despite loosing in a best of 2 qualification series with the Ivorian Women's Team. The two games which were played a day after the other was more of an exposure for the Ghanaian Team who had not participated in any high level competitions on the continent for years.