The Nigerian Basketball Federation’s (NBBF) steps to re-launch her youth programmes got a huge boost during the week following wild card invitation from the International Basketball Federation Africa (FIBA Africa) to be part of the 2015 U-16 Men’s and Women championship holding in July.
The Nigerian U-16 Women’s team will participate in the final round of the 4th FIBA Africa U-16 Women championship which starts from July 10 to 19, 2015 in Antananarivo, Madagascar.
While their male counterparts will participate in the final round of the 5th Africa Nations Junior Championship in Bamako, Mali from July 30 to August 8, 2015.
The competition will consolidate the Youth development prospect camps and a chance to showcase the Nigerian basketball talents at the world stage. As the teams placed first and second in the African Championship will qualify for the FIBA U-17 World championships for men and women slated for June 25 to July 3 and July 16 to 24, 2016 respectively.
The training camp for the female team will open in Abuja this June while the male time table will be announced in due course.
It would be recalled that the Nigerian Female national team sealed qualification for the 2015 Afrobasket for Women/All African Games later this year with an emphatic 88-43 points win over Cote d’ Ivoire in the second round match at the Palais du Sport in Abidjan.
The D’Tigress was powered to victory by Uju Ugoka’s 14 points, with captain Helen Ogunjimi and Primeiro Agosto point guard, Sarah Ogoke adding 13 points each in an impressive display on the night that saw the D’Tigress claw past the female Elephants with ease.
The Scott Nnaji lead Ladies took charge from the jump ball, taking a 10 points lead in the opening 10 minutes (25-15), then extended their lead to 47-27 at half time.
D’Tigress ended any hopes of a comeback for the female Elephants of Cote d’ Ivoire in the third quarter outscoring them 26-9 to pull up an unassailable 71-36 points lead going into the 4th quarter. Closing the deal with a 17-6 points score line in the final 10 minutes.
First Bank Basketball club point guard, Atosu Upe also had an electrifying night scoring 12 points alongside sparkling Ndidi Madu who also put up 12 points.
Nigeria has now booked a date with Angola, Senegal, Algeria, the qualifier from FIBA Africa Zone 2 and yet to be named wild card entry in group B of the 2015 Afrobasket in Yaounde, Cameroun come September 22-3rd October for a battle for a 3rd African title and a ticket to the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.