07 July 2008
NIGERIA : Bakare return to national duty
The Nigeria Basketball Federation, NBBF has recall former coach of the Nigeria national teams, Ayodele Bakare to tinker the Nigeria senior men national team, DTigers after series of failed attempts with expatriate coaches.
The coming back of Bakare, Nigeria most successful coach who qualified Nigeria for her first FIBA World Championship in 1998 in Greece when the country finished second to host Senegal at the 1997 FIBA Africa Championship for Men.
The Ebun Comets basketball club owner and coach was in the saddle until 2003 before he took a voluntary retirement from national duties, he was, however, recalled in 2005 when Nigeria hosted and won the 19th FIBA Africa Championship for Women in Abuja, Nigeria before bowing out to allow the Nigeria federation experiment with two expatriate coaches Sam Vincent who took Nigeria senior men team a step back-ward in 2005 when the country finished third behind perennial champion, Angola and Senegal but bagged a place in the 2006 FIBA World Championship held in Japan then came Robert McCollum in 2007,
McCollum was in charge when Nigeria recorded one of the worst results in her basketball history when DTigers was bundled out of the 2007 FIBA Africa Championship for Men by little known Cape Verde in the quarter-finals and the country managed a fifth placing.
With the shoddy performance of the countrys team under expatriate coaches, the NBBF have no option than to revert back to making use of indigenous coaches so as to stop the wastage of the scarce resources at the disposal of the federation.
Bakare first assignment according to our finding is the FIBA Africa Zone-3 qualifiers of the 2009 Africa Men Championship in Abidjan, Cote dIvoire later this month.
The coming back of Bakare, Nigeria most successful coach who qualified Nigeria for her first FIBA World Championship in 1998 in Greece when the country finished second to host Senegal at the 1997 FIBA Africa Championship for Men.
The Ebun Comets basketball club owner and coach was in the saddle until 2003 before he took a voluntary retirement from national duties, he was, however, recalled in 2005 when Nigeria hosted and won the 19th FIBA Africa Championship for Women in Abuja, Nigeria before bowing out to allow the Nigeria federation experiment with two expatriate coaches Sam Vincent who took Nigeria senior men team a step back-ward in 2005 when the country finished third behind perennial champion, Angola and Senegal but bagged a place in the 2006 FIBA World Championship held in Japan then came Robert McCollum in 2007,
McCollum was in charge when Nigeria recorded one of the worst results in her basketball history when DTigers was bundled out of the 2007 FIBA Africa Championship for Men by little known Cape Verde in the quarter-finals and the country managed a fifth placing.
With the shoddy performance of the countrys team under expatriate coaches, the NBBF have no option than to revert back to making use of indigenous coaches so as to stop the wastage of the scarce resources at the disposal of the federation.
Bakare first assignment according to our finding is the FIBA Africa Zone-3 qualifiers of the 2009 Africa Men Championship in Abidjan, Cote dIvoire later this month.
# posted by afrbk : 20:07
