You’re accustomed to standard five-on-five basketball. The three-on-three tournament has grown on you. Now, Pentas Arena located in Kyanja, Kampala is bringing you a fresh and exciting in-between: four-on-four half-court basketball.
This new game format, dubbed “The Engineers Sunday Hoops 4 x 4 Basketball Tournament” will start Sunday, April 16th 2023 and this competition does exactly as its name suggests.
Having started a few years ago, this is going to be the 12th 4-on-4 full-court basketball tournament that is fully powered by Urban Engineers Construction and Design who have put cash prizes and a trophy for the winning team.. And, it introduces a kind of play that is uniquely its own thus encouraging teams to start registering as soon as they can with payment of 50,000 ug shs per team or 10,000 ug shs per player.
The best part: it’s perfect for the Ugandan style of play and it will be a whole new Basketball Experience.
This 4-on-4 basketball tournament originated in China and Uganda is among one of the first African nations to adopt it.
And with a new game format comes new rules. Here are a few to help you get a grasp of this brand-new tournament:
- Only four players can play per team. Each team can have one sub available.
- Anything shot inside the arc counts as one point, and shots beyond the arc count as two.
- A game ends when a team scores 21 points or when the 15-minute game clock runs out.
- There is no backcourt violation.
With these new rules comes a new way to enjoy the game we already know and love. “The game opens up more than the traditional 5-on-5 because you only have eight players on the court,” one of the organizers of this tournament tells us. “And it’s much faster than the 3-on-3 because you have the whole size of the court to use.”
Indeed, one of the first things you’ll notice when watching this Tournament is how much more space there is on the court. And with the additional room comes more pace and more freedom for creativity. The commissioner of the tournament, Eric Bugumirwa, explained that because of the format, games are more free-flowing.
But, don’t be intimidated by these new set of rules and regulations. It may be a new format, but even so, you’ll find something very reminiscent in these 4-on-4 games.
“It’s basically the same rules you have when you play in the park,” Marketing Manager Ssali Robert explains. “I think it was also easy for the players to just embrace it because everyone learned how to play ball in the streets. So it’s really streetball that we’re offering the Ugandan market.”
So rather than making the sport even more technical, this tournament actually brings basketball back to something simpler.
For those who are free to dream
Any basketball player worth his salt knows what it’s like to play streetball. In a country so basketball-crazy, there are countless pickup games in Kampala, parks, or literally anywhere with a ball and a hoop. This is, after all, where all players start.
This one-of-a-kind tournament draws back to those origins—the lifestyle that comes with the sheer passion for the sport.
You Need Skill Not Size
The traditional 5-on-5 basketball format can become very technical, especially when you’re watching games in the National Basketball League and the NBA. Coaches have their own systems, players have their own roles on the court.
But, taking one player off each team, suddenly, every man on the court is forced to adjust to new roles with every play, and the system needs to be improvised right in the moment. This is why games can be so unpredictable in this tournament.
