Basketball in Africa

The Vmobile Premier Basketball League played through Week Three by the weekend with different results for the various teams in the championship. While it was a continued run of unbeaten position for Dodan Warriors, it was another week of defeat for the Nigeria Customs team.
In the Savannah Conference, visiting Yelwa Hawks taught the AHIP Giants some basketball tricks in the game played in Kano by dishing out a two point defeat to their host in overtime. The Warriors’ game against former champions Lagos Islanders was highly advertised and the game lived up to the billing as every point was well fought for. At the end of the game Dodan Warriors won by a massive 91- 63 points.
“We didn’t play well because some of my players got carried away by the results of the first two games. But that notwithstanding the officiating was not in the best interest of the game. The two referees are soldiers officiating in a game we are playing against Dodan Warriors. So in times when the referees had to use their judgment in 50/50 calls, it went in favour of the Warriors. And when 90% of such calls go to one team, the other team can never win that game,” Toyin Sonoiki of the Islanders said after the game.
The Islanders were the bookmakers’ favourites but they lost every quarter of the exciting match to their opponents. The result means that Dodan Warriors remain unbeaten, as both teams had entered the Sports Hall of the National Stadium, Lagos with maximum points from their previous games.
Twenty-four hours after that game Customs played as hosts to the Union Back team in the same venue and the story was all sad for the Customs. They lost 83-66, which explains that they are yet to win a game this season despite qualifying for the play offs of the Vmobile Challenge last season.
Customs won the last quarter of the game by 26-23 points but at that point their fans had given up having watched the green and white team play as under-matched team to the Bankers who won the Vmobile Challenge.
In Kaduna the local derby of Plateau Peaks and Tapgun Rockets ended 84-64 in favour of Peaks. Although Tapgun battled their opponents for point, the result followed the prediction of experts. The Jos teams play their games in Kaduna.