Basketball Team Blames Loss On Poor Preparation

Coach Peter Ahmedu of
Mark Mentors basketball club of Abuja has  blamed the club’s poor performance at the 2014 Africa Champions Cup for Men on bad preparations.
Ahmedu told newsmen in Abuja that the team had minimal preparations for the championship compared to other clubs who had better preparations.
Mark Mentors debuted in the championship held in Tunis, Tunisia from December 11 to 21 as Nigeria’s lone representatives.
The club won only two of their five preliminary group matches to place ninth among 12 clubs which participated in the championship, which was in its 29th edition.
“We came second in our local league to play in the championship and we felt that is how the level of the championship will be.
“But it was not so. The standard of the championship was high and we could not cope with the weather and the skills.
“This is because we didn’t have the best of preparations. We had local preparations, and we never went into a closed camp and we did not change environment to acclimatise.
“Besides, the level of commitment and motivation we needed from the club management was not there.
“But, in all, it was not a bad experience because we got exposed to what we have never seen before,’’ Ahmedu said.
He said the preparations the Nigerian club had was inferior to what other clubs had, and they could not do more than they did.
“When we got there, we realised that the championship is different from what we thought it would be.
“The standard was high and all the clubs which qualified were well prepared from what we saw.
“You could see in them that they went on training tours to acclimatise, because the weather was not a problem to them.
“Besides, they know the standard of the championship since they are not new to it. So, most of them have two or more foreign-based players in their team.
“They were well prepared and it showed in the way they played,’’ Ahmedu said.
Mark Mentors qualified to play in the continental championship after coming second in the FIBA Africa Zone 3 qualifiers, the sub-continental competition.
They had finished as runners-up in the 2013/2014 DSTV Men’s Premier Basketball League to qualify as one on Nigeria’s two representatives.