Rivers Hoopers head
coach Ogoh Odaudu believes his side have overachieved in their return to the top flight of Nigerian Basketball.
The former League champions gained promotion to the DSTV Basketball league in December after missing out of the 2014/2015 season and Odaudu is proud of his team.
“Coming out of relegation and not playing for one season, I can say we have achieved a lot. Many teams in our position would have been battling relegation but we have not done that rather we have done a lot better than we are supposed to do,” Odaudu posited.
“It is a fresh team and most of them are playing with themselves for the first time but the
chemistry is gradually building and you will see a different team at the play offs.”
The Port Harcourt side dominated Nigeria basketball league two seasons in a row winning the 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 title but ended the 2015/2016 regular season in a third place finish. The ex-international explains the difference between the Hoopers of old and now.
“Like the Hoopers of before, we practice months before every competition,” he vividly compares.
“We commenced training two weeks before the season started and we started building ourselves gradually during the course of the season.
“We don’t have the caliber of players we had before and that’s because we didn’t recruit early which will change next season.” Odaudu concluded.
Rivers Hoopers will compete with the other four teams in the Atlantic conference from Monday for a spot in the last four playoff.