Basketball in Africa

The Zenith Bank Female Basketball League resumes this afternoon with teams in the Losers’ Conference play off taking the jump ball at the National Stadium in Abuja. The series is a continuation of the first three stages held in Asaba, Akure and then Bauchi a fortnight ago.
Top of the pack for this Abuja meet are the Dolphins of Lagos who failed to qualify directly from the Western Conference play off held in Akure. That centre was aptly tagged the ‘Zone of Death’ with First Bank, Delta Force and Dolphins as clearly the three favourites to pick up the two tickets. But in a dramatic twist, the Delta team that seemed to falter at the start of the play off woke up to edge out the highly rated Dolphins who finished last season as the runners up of the inaugural Zenith Bank League.
But with the pain of that fall over, the Lagos club owned by Wale Aboderin are the undisputed top seeds of this zone. They are highly rated to qualify for the Lagos finals. The other teams here are Oluyole Babes from the Akure play off, Sunshine Babes who finished third from the Equatorial Conference in Asaba and Dodan Amazons who were fourth there. Also in are Plateau Rocks of Jos and the Bauchi Queens. Both teams finished third and fourth respectively from the Savannah Conference play off held in Bauchi.
The six teams in Abuja are the best losers from the three conferences and two teams are billed to qualify to join the other six for the Final-8 play off. With the Dolphins favoured for the top spot, going by the records, the other ticket should be a clear fight between Plateau Rocks and Sunshine Queens. Both teams have not met for quite some time now which makes their clash quite difficult to predict.
The Rocks arrived late in Bauchi but rallied hard to pick a losers’ ticket. Experience and background may place them ahead of Sunshine before the actual battle begins on the court. Dodan Amazons and Oluyole Babes look like outsiders. The last four teams would drop to the lower division from next season.