Basketball in Africa

By Olawale Ajimotokan
Abuja — Nigeria's senior national team basketball coach, Sani Ahmed, yesterday reiterated D'Tigers' readiness to take on Burkina Faso in the Afrobasket Championship 2015 qualifier in Ouagadougou later this month.
Ahmed, who put 14 players through training session in Abuja, said at a media parley that he already had a hint of the type of players that will confront Nigeria having seen Burkina Faso play at the last Afrobasket Championship in Cote d'Ivoire last year in addition to the recent Zone 3 Championship.
The coach said he was ready to take on the fellow West African team given the improved level of fitness of D'Tigers. "At the Zone 3 championship where Kano Pillars and Mark Mentors represented Nigeria, Burkina Faso brought two teams and our teams beat them by 30 points margin. I also saw their team play at the Afrobasket Championship in Ivory Coast. If they bring that team we will be ready to take them on. They have players in division one and two in France as well as some who play in the colleges in USA but I am not sure they will be available," Ahmed stressed.
He vouched for the readiness of the players in camp, saying that he expects the team to triumph over two legs because of the shooting and ball handling skills of his players. He also said he took the players successfully through qualifying for Afrobasket in Togo in 2010. Similarly, the coach's enthusiasm was echoed by two of the players in camp-Stanley Gummut and Mathew Onondaga. Gummut who featured for Nigeria at the last Afrobasket in Abidjan, said D'Tigers would be up to the task because of the pedigree of Nigeria.
He said that they would make the country proud as they know what to expect in Ouagadougou. Also, Omonya who plays for Kano Pillars said the team has forged a chemistry and will be ready to for the challenge. "I know with what we have on ground, we will do the country proud. We are psychologically ready for them. They have a good national team given that some of their players play in Nigeria. But we know their ability," Omonya hinted.