JOHANNESBURG (AfroBasket Women 2015) - This summer, South Africa will compete at AfroBasket Women for the first time since 2009, knowing they will need to excel on and off the court to continue to boosting the future of the game in the country.

That’s the reason why head coach Kimathi Toboti has not rested much since they secured qualification in March.

And he has a plan in mind for one of toughest challenges of coaching career.

"This past month or so we have been focusing on making sure we have a group of players who are fit for such a stage," he told FIBA.com.

As a result of a training camp held early this month, Toboti shortlisted 15 players to face the Seychelles in a three-game series in Johannesburg from 29-31 May.

Toboti called up a number of players who have previously feature for the country, including Takalani Mfamadi and Pumla Sathula, who played collegiate basketball at Hamilton University in the USA.

Preparation and competitive games should be crucial for South Africa before taking on title contenders Cameroon, Mozambique and Mali as well as Gabon and debutants Uganda in Group A of this year's edition of the African Championship in Yaounde, Cameroon, from 24 September-3 October.

But before the 12-team event begins, South Africa is expected to play a warm-up tournament in neighbouring Mozambique from 25-28 June.

For a team that has missed out on qualification for two consecutive African Championships (2011 and 2013), Yaounde 2015 is quite a challenge, not only because the event serves as a qualifier for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, but also because South Africa will try to climb in the FIBA Bwin World Ranking Women.

"Having watched a couple of the games from the AfroBasket [Women] 2013 one can see that we need to run up and down the floor," Toboti explained.

Transition offense and defense will be key. We have been working on being able to be physical as well. - Toboti

Asked how competitive they can become, the South African play-caller replied: "So are we currently building on the small but important things that will make us competitive. It is only when we start playing friendlies against top teams, then we will get a sense on how far we are in competing at that level," he added.

But Group A will not be an easy task for South Africa.

Toboti hinted a sense of concern as well as confidence to explain how he sees their preliminary-round opponents.

He said: "We all saw how well Mozambique performed at the [2014] FIBA Women's World Championship.

"Mali has a good development programme and hence they always compete for junior women titles.

"Cameroon are not only going into AfroBasket [Women] with a 13th player (their crowd) behind them, but they made to AfroBasket [Women] 2013 semifinal. They lost to both Mozambique and Angola by only four points. That shows how good they are.

"Uganda and Gabon can not be underestimated as they also had to win big games to make it to AfroBasket [Women].

"Gabon will have Mimi [Mungedi] on their side and there is a reason why she is in the WNBA. So like I said, no easy games.

"When you play against players like Mungedi, [Deolinda] Ngulela, [Amina] Njounkou and [Ramses] Lonlack, you have to match that physicality. [And] we all saw what [Leia] Dongue did last year in Turkey as well," he concluded.

South Africa preliminary squad to face Seychelles in three-game series ahead of AfroBasket Women 2015: Fortunate Bosega, Priscilla Dlamini, Buyiswa Gwangwa, Philadelphia Khoabane, Neo Mbamba, Takalani Mfamadi, Modiegi Mokoka, Ellen Moutlwatse, Lungile Mtsweni, Zanele Ndaba, Sophy Ngobeni, Asamkele Nongwendu, Veranique Samuels, Pumla Sathula, Lindiwe Shabangu.

FIBA