Basketball: Singapore women’s team building towards gold target at 2029 SEA Games 

SINGAPORE – Preparation for the upcoming SEA Games is in full swing for the Singapore women’s basketball team, as they get ready to host regional rivals in the South-east Asia Women Basketball League (SWBL) from March 3 to 5. 

They will be taking on Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia at the Toa Payoh Sports Hall.

The team hope to work out their chemistry before the May 5-17 Games in Cambodia, where they will be seeking to improve on their unsatisfactory sixth place in Hanoi in 2022.

All these plans will help them build towards a longer-term target – a gold medal at the 2029 Games in Singapore. 

Basketball Association of Singapore (BAS) coaching and development chairman Allen Lee said: “Our goal is to rebuild our team to enforce a good team culture.

“This form of international exposure is very important. Our eventual goal is for 2029, but exposure must start from 2023.” 

BAS president Koh Koon Teck hopes the SWBL will enable the players to showcase their abilities in front of the home crowd.

He said: “The players are training very hard and we want to provide a local platform for them. Most of the time, they travel overseas for tournaments. 

“By playing at home, we hope to let locals know our basketball style. We also hope people will support them all the way to the SEA Games.”

This will be Singapore’s debut in the SWBL, whose inaugural season in 2022 clashed with the local Women’s National Basketball League. 

National player Choo Jie Ying, 23, believes such tournaments will help them better understand how to work together as a team. 

The centre said: “The SWBL is a very good learning opportunity for us to improve and learn from athletes overseas who have a higher level and more experience.

“While playing against them, we can better understand our strengths and weaknesses and work on them.”

Ariel Loiter, Singapore’s first team sportswoman to feature in the NCAA Division I in the United States when she turned out for Colgate Raiders in 2020, is also looking forward to the competition.

The 20-year-old said: “The players on the national teams overseas are all professional players.

“So it’s a different level of basketball – it’s a lot more intense, a lot more aggressive, a lot faster compared to Singapore.”

The team train thrice a week, and frequency will soon increase to five or six sessions weekly. The SEA Games squad will be announced soon, with 12 players selected from the current 21-member training squad.

Loiter, who made her SEA Games debut in 2017, said: “It’s always an honour to represent my country, to go out there and wear the flag across my chest.

“The team is working very hard, spending extra time putting up shots and going to the weight room together.

“This builds up our chemistry, which will hopefully translate in the SEA Games.”