Basketball in Africa

Lagos City league regular season leader, Union Bank basketball club Wednesday began its quest for a place in the grand finale ticket on a good note with a 91-88 points victory over Dodan Warriors basketball club at the Sports Hall of the Lagos National Stadium.

The match, watched by capacity crowd who defied the heavy rain saw the Stallion Boys as the bankers are known taking the first quarter with 27-23 points, but surrendered the second quarter to the enterprising Col. Sam Ahmedu (Rtd) Warriors by 29-21 points for a 52-48 points scoreline at half-time.

The Bankers reduced the margin by one point in the third quarter (16-15) and came all out in the last and decisive quarter to win at 27-21 points for a cummulative scores of 91-88 points to set up a meeting between it and Kennys’ Bullets on Friday.

Union Bank Small forward Lious Edem Ekpeyong led the floor with 27 points while the duo of guards Sola Alayande and Moses Daudu added 18 and 11 points respectively, Warriors enterprising forward Michael Uma-Okoro led his teammates on the scorers chat with 26 points, Ibrahim Adamu and Nosa Omorogbe contributed 18 and 12 points each.

The seond match of Wednesday saw former Nigeria Basketball Federation, NBBF, premier league champion, Ebun Comets basketball club going down to City league defending champion, Kennys’ Bullets basketball club 79-72 points in an over-time.

Bullets inspired by former captain Baba Jibril and guard Michael Ohiero took the first quarter by 23-15 points but surrendered the second and third quarters (20-11, 14-10) only to even scores in the fourth quarter winning the quarter by 23-18 points for a 67-67 points at regulation time thereby forcing the game into over-time of five minutes which it won by 12-05 points for a cummulative scoreline of 79-72 points.

Comets point guard, Orseer Ikyaator who was recently drafted to the Nigeria Senior Nationa Team, D’Tigers led the floor with 23 points with rookie off-guard Ayodeji Egbeyemi who had a great game adding 17 points while small forward Dennis Ebikoro contributed 14 points, Jibril’s 22 points, Samson John 18, Ohiero 14 and Dare Borokoni 10 points were all the Bullets needed to carry the day.

On Friday Comets and Warriors will take on each other at 14.00 hours while Bullets and Union Bank will take their turn at 16.00 hours while Saturday will be observed as rest day.
By Seinde Ikuesan