The Head Coach of Rivers Hoopers Basketball Club of Port Harcourt, Ogoh Odaudu on Tuesday said his team worked hard to emerge champions of the just concluded basketball league.
By Babatunde Ogunrinde
The Head Coach of Rivers Hoopers Basketball Club of Port Harcourt, Ogoh Odaudu on Tuesday said his team worked hard to emerge champions of the just concluded basketball league.
He said that the team had very good balance in all departments and a solid team cohesion which helped them prevail over other oppositions.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Hoopers beat all the participating teams from the Atlantic Conference till the Final Eight championship.
They defeated Hoops and Read Basketball Club of Lagos 71-54 in the finals to emerge this year’s winners of the Nigeria Basketball Men’s Premier League in Rivers.
An elated Odaudu told NAN in a telephone interview that the team had prepared well ahead of the championship and were happy the result came their way.
“We worked hard for this competition, knowing full well that there were no small teams in the competition.
“We had a target which is to reach the final and it was fulfilled, and thereafter it gave us all the determination we needed to achieve our ultimate objective, ” he said.
Odaudu said the team was proud to win the championship back to back, adding that ” we look forward to doing more in the nearest future.”
NAN reports that as champions of the Premier League Basketball, Hooper’s have qualified to participate in the Basketball African League (BAL) which dunks off soon.
Odaudu said that his team would go home and rest pending the release of fixtures for this year’s BAL championship.
According to him: “We would have to go and rest now because it has been a very competitive competition that really took a toll on our strength.”
Rivers Hoopers came third in the last continental showpiece and are confident of going further with the good experience they got from the previous championship.
“We are confident of doing better than we did in our last participation; we are better experienced now than before and we will approach it differently,” he said.(NAN)
