The Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) on Friday said it was repositioning basketball for greater results and the development of Nigerian youths.
TheNewsGuru reports that the NBBF made the assertion at a parley with fans and the media in Lagos to review its successes so far since being sworn-in in August.
The Vice-President of NBBF, Babs Ogunade, said the success of the senior women national team, D’Tigress in Mali Women’s Afrobasket, was the icing on the cake of the board’s ability to handle the business of basketball.
He said that if the players invited for the senior men’s team, D’Tigers had honoured their call, the situation could have been different in Tunisia at the Men’s Afrobasket co-hosted with Senegal.
He added the players that finally came also were heroes of the nation and should be given their due regards for turning up at a short notice to do the nations proud.
“We had a very good outing in Mali where our women’s team won all their eight games to emerge the champions of the competition, indeed it was a milestone achievement.
“It almost happened for the men’s team but beating Senegal, one of the host teams, was a formidable result and coming back home with the second place trophy was not that bad.
“The players that honoured our invitation had little time to gel but still proved their quality and their respect for national call-ups,’’ Ogunade said.
He noted that with the women’s team had already qualified for the 2018 World Cup in Spain and the next thing now was to draw a workable preparation plan ahead of the competition.
He also said that for the men’s qualification, all players would be contacted to fight for jerseys and that the bulk of the 2015 squad had signaled their readiness to be available.
The successes of the 3×3 male and female teams that won silver medals at the just-concluded championships in Mali was also mentioned as worthy achievement of the board.
Ogunade, while appraising the success so far, thanked the media for their unshakable support and urged them to look at basketball as a sport that would reshape the future of sports in Nigeria.
NAN reports that the NBBF board is also making arrangements to organise a local committee to handle the coming FIBA Zone 3 Basketball Championships in Lagos from Oct. 19 to Oct. 29.