23 Aug 2023, Juba, SOUTH SUDAN – South Sudan’s men’s national basketball team arrived in the Philipines capital Maila on Wednesday to participate for the first time ever in the FIBA Basketball World Cup finals that shall be held in the Philipines, Indonesia and Japan.
The South Sudanese team, led by two-time NBA star Luol Deng, flew in from China, where it had camped for a couple of days and played a number of friendly matches – that included defeating Jordan 91:82 in Quanzhou – in preparation for the World Cup finals.
South Sudan made history earlier this year after it defeated Senegal 83-75 and qualified for the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup finals. The Bright Stars national basketball team was established in May 2011, just two months before South Sudan was pronounced an independent country. It became a member of FIBA in December 2013 and in 2021, team South Sudan participated in the AfroBasket competition.
