Sports
Rivers Hoopers Target 2025 BAL Final
Rivers Hoopers coach Ogoh Odaudu has said the team’s ambition at next year’s Basketball Africa League is to go one better by reaching the final or even win the coveted trophy.
The Nigerian champions finished third at the last edition, setting a Nigerian record.
Having won their sixth national championship, beating Lagos-based Hoops and Read 71-54 to claim the 2024 NBBF Final 8 title, they have qualified for the 2025 BAL and also extended their unbeaten streak in the domestic league to 25 games.
Aside from their push at the club level, Odaudu revealed that BAL president, Amadou Gallo Fall, was impressed by the team’s outing at the 2024 tournament, charging them to build on it.
“Amadou Gallo Fall personally approached me and said, hey, you guys have to go and build on all of this that you just did, otherwise, it will all be a waste,” Hoopers coach Ogoh Odaudu told Tidesports source.
“This is why it is such a great feeling for us to know that we are going back. It means a lot to me because we didn’t want to miss out on qualifying. After all, then it would mean that whatever it is that we achieved the previous BAL was just a fluke. So we really wanted to go back and build on it.”
Odaudu also said the team are poised to keep their influential players like Kelvin Amayo, who won the NBBF Finals MVP, Will Perry, Peter Olisemeka and Devine Eke, now playing in the G-League.
“One of the things we are going to stick with is continuity. You find out that every BAL season, teams come with entirely different teams than they had the previous one.
“We are going to try and limit that as much as possible and come back with almost the same set of people that we used to prosecute the last campaign. It’s not guaranteed that we are sure of them, but we are in talks with them already,” Odaudu said. The only people we are sure of right now are Peter and Kelvin who came to help us qualify.
“Will, of course, was instrumental to our success, but he has a new contract with a team in Dubai, we don’t know what his season is going to end. But then I’m sure that if he is free, he will come and play for us.”
Going into the inaugural BAL tournament in 2020, Hoopers were favoured to do well but ended up eliminated in the group phase. The team now wants to be considered a force on the continent, not just a side that goes to make up the numbers.
“We don’t want to be seen as the usual thing that every time we go to the continent it’s just to come to participate and not to compete,” Odaudu said.
A well-known football pundit in the State, Chief Christopher Okonkwo has lauded the efforts and vision of the Super Eagles Coach Eric Chelle for going from one venue of the Nigeria Domestic Nigeria Professional Football League match to the other in monitoring Nigerian players, with a view to invite some exceptional good one discovered into the main stream of the Super Eagles team.
Okonkwo, who made the commendation in an interview at the Port Harcourt Club recently, described the positive move by Coach Chelle as a good step in the right direction, noting that the practice was how its been done in the past among any contracted coach assigned to tinker the Super Eagles team.
“Truly, it has been an old tradition in the country seeing any newly engaged Coach to lead the National team, visiting some our Nigeria League venues during the league matches to spot light some good talents that could be used to beef up some grey areas in the department of Eagles team”
He, however, frowned at the current situation where our coaches had continously been over depending on the use of foreign based players during invitation of players to the National camp, thereby, relegating the domestic home based league players to the background as if they have nothing much to offer to the team.
“I can vividly recall that the likes of great players in the mode of Finidi George, Taribo West, Kanu Nwankwo, Austin Okocha, Richard Owobokiri, Emmanuel Osuigwe among others started from Nigeria football league before they graduated to play in Europe through which they later invited to Super Eagles camp to represent Nigeria”
“Besides, I’m also of the view that going to secondary school football competitive games could equally serves as a a good platform to discover budding talents that could be nurtured to become great stars in near future”, Okonkwo frankly added.
Okonkwo, therefore, prayed that any football coach to be engaged by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to tinker the Super Eagles should be told not to confine himself in staying in big hotel alone but to be visiting some of our local league match venues, with a view to discover some good players that can be drafted into the Super Eagles team.
“Indeed, I stand to be challenged that there some young good players in the Nigeria Professional League. If spotted and exposed, could give the some of the invited foreign based players a stiff competitive fight in securing a postion in the team”, Okonkwo emphatically stated.
Ezechukwu, one of the youngest members of the Nigerian contingent at the championship in Ghana, said her ambition was to win the 100m title in style and cap it with a new personal record.
The fresh secondary school graduate explained that she is fully focused on contributing to Team Nigeria’s medal hopes and is determined to deliver strong performances across her events.
“My main objective in Ghana is to clinch the 100m title and the 4×100m,” Ezechukwu told Tidesports source.
“Nigeria can be assured of my very best and my commitment to the Team. I would love to set a new personal best in Ghana, but anything that comes, I will take it. The spirit in the team is high, and I think we are ready to go,” she said.
Ezechukwu, who was part of Nigeria’s women’s 4x100m relay squad at the World Relays in Botswana, said the experience gained from that competition has strengthened her mindset heading into the continental championships.
She admitted that she learned valuable lessons from her previous outing, including a difficult moment during the relay where an early error affected the team’s rhythm, but said she has used the experience to improve her discipline and composure.
“The secret is just being disciplined, training hard and trusting my coach and believing in God, and the result will show,” she added.
The teenager is part of a 41-member Nigerian team comprising 24 female and 17 male athletes competing at the championships, which begin today at the University of Ghana, Legon.
Nigeria are expected to compete across multiple track and field events as they aim for a strong finish against the continent’s elite athletes.
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