Ghana Technology University College (GTUC) is officially the first team to be eliminated from the 2016 Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges (UPAC) Basketball Championship.
The third edition of Ghana’s grandest tertiary basketball tournament, headlined by Rexona tipped off at the University of Ghana on Saturday March 5 following two days of warm up games played a week prior and will feature 28 tertiary institutions in all.
Four teams, Pentecost University College, Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Ho Polytechnic and GTUC were involved on the first day of the six week-long competition.
Ho Polytechnic shocked all by beating hot favourites GIMPA 19-15 in the opening game before falling to Pentecost University 30-36 in the second game. Pentecost had earlier defeated GTUC 22-20 leaving GTUC in need of a victory to sustain its’ championship campaign against fellow strugglers GIMPA.
Despite taking a 15-8 lead into the second quarter, GTUC got pegged back and eventually lost 26-30 to a more determined GIMPA team which refused to give up the fight. As a result of a second successive defeat, GTUC got eliminated from the championship before the final round of games commenced.
Needing to win to have a chance to progress to the next stage, Ho Polytechnic took a first half lead against GTUC before the game got called off due to persistent rain. The outcome of the game will be decided later by the technical committee of the Championship. GIMPA’s final Zone A game against undefeated Pentecost University College has been moved to April 8 to be played as part of Zone G games.
The 2016 UPAC Championship is supported by MTN, CAL Bank and Fanyogo in partnership with Basketballghana.com, TV3, Y FM and Ghana Sports Newspaper.
