Basketball in Africa

The date for the second phase of the Zenith Bank League for Women in Nigeria remains as originally planned the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) has announced. There were moves to draw the competition fixed for Enugu – a capital city 595km south east of Abuja - forward by four days but the NBBF and their sponsors have finally settled for the May 8th to 18th period as originally scheduled. It was gathered that the Federation could not secure the venue for the proposed date and had to revert back to the original schedule as a result.

“We could not get the hall for that period going by the report from those on ground in Enugu,” the Federation representative said.

It was explained that the original intention of taking a four-day early move was to take care of the young students in the teams who are ready to take the Secondary School Certificate examinations. It was to give them some time to get back to their bases. But even at that, a team like Dolphins had also drawn attention of the Federation to the fact that the new date would not be favourable to them as some of their players are also involved with the NIPOGA (Nigeria Polytechnics Games) which is ending on the 5th of May in Ado Ekiti.

The first phase of the league was ended April 5th in Abuja while the third and final phase will hold by June in Lagos.

By Pius Ayinor