FIBA Africa zone 3: Nigerian teams maintain dominance

Dolphins at the FIBA Africa Zone 3 championship

Nigerian teams showed dominance at the FIBA Africa Zone 3
Championship, which was held between November 4 and 12 at
the
Palaise des Sports de Cotonou, Benin Republic.
The four Nigerian teams – Mark Mentors, Kano Pillars, Dolphins
and First Bank – trounced their opponents and picked up the
four.
   Africa Zone 3 tickets to the 2015 FIBA Africa club championship
holding in Luanda, Angola from November 27 to December 6 for
women and December 10 to 19 for men.
Six male teams –Braves of Ghana, LPRC of Liberia, ASPAC of
Benin Republic, Mighty Barolla of Liberia, Pillars and Mentors –
competed for two tickets to the men’s Africa club
championship; while Dolphins, First Bank and two teams from
Benin, ASPAC and Energie, vied for two tickets to the women’s
championship.
As it has been in recent years, the Nigerian teams beat their
opponents from other countries, losing only to their
compatriots.
On the men’s side, Pillars, who were runners in the Nigerian
league, beat all their opponents including Nigerian champions
Mentors to become FIBA Africa Zone 3 champions. Mentors
won all their games except the loss to Pillars.
Considering that only four female teams showed up for the Zone
3 championship, a double round robin format was adopted with
each team playing their opponents twice.
Dolphins, who are Nigerian champions, beat all the other teams
including Nigerian league runners up First Bank in the first
round, but lost to First Bank in their second meeting.
In their first meeting last Saturday, Dolphins beat First Bank
83-71, but lost 79-58 to the Elephant Girls in their last game on
Wednesday.
Since First Bank had defeated their other opponents and beaten
Dolphins by 21 points and lost to them by only 12 points, the
Elephant Girls were crowned the new Zone 3 champions.
An elated Pillars coach Sani Ahmed said his team proved their
worth in Cotonou by winning all five games and emerging Zone
3 champions.
Ahmed told our correspondent on the telephone on Thursday
that they were looking forward to winning their games at the
African championship in Angola.
“We won all our games and I thank God for that. We took the
place of Mark Mentors. Last year, we were Nigerian champions
and Mentors were FIBA Africa Zone 3 champions. Now, they are
Nigerian champions and we are Zone 3 champions,” the former
D’Tigers coach said.
“I knew we would beat Mentors in Cotonou because we lost to
them in the league final in Lagos because we had challenges
that we couldn’t do anything about. We’ve proved our worth in
Cotonou. We will reconvene next week to prepare for the African
championship. Our target always is to win, so we will do our
best when we get to Angola.”
On other hand, Dolphins coach Ochuko Okworogun told our
correspondent that she believed her players faced First Bank
with complacency in their last game in Cotonou, which cost
them their FIBA Africa Zone 3 title.
Okworogun said, “The Zone 3 championship in Cotonou went
very well until the last game. We didn’t deserve to win that last
game against First Bank because my girls didn’t play well. I
guess the problem was complacency. They felt we would beat
First Bank again, since we beat them in our first meeting at the
qualifier. They were probably satisfied knowing we had already
qualified before that game. We lost our title as Zone 3
champions to First Bank because they beat us with a wider
margin than we beat them.
“I believe we have learnt from that loss as we prepare for the
African championship, where we will face teams that are much
stronger than First Bank. We’ve given the players a three-day
break. They will return for training on Monday as we begin
preparations for the challenge in Angola. We will do our best at
the African championship. We will improve on our last year
performance.”