Sports
Basketball: All Star Game Excites Hoopers’ Coach
Rivers Hoopers Coach, Ogoh Odaudu, says he is excited with his leadership of the Atlantic Conference teams at the ongoing 2017 Kwese Premier Basketball League (KPBL) All Star Weekend game in Kano.
Odaudu made the assertion in a statement by Queen John, the club’s Media Officer in Port Harcourt on Wednesday.
The statement said that though the Atlantic Conference selected side lost to Savannah Conference 106-115, he had fun with the game in Kano on June 17.
“It was great being at the All Star teams again. I’ve not been there for a couple of years so it was fun.
“We had fun out there even though we lost, it was still fun, and this is my fourth appearance at the All Star Weekend game as a coach,’’ it said.
It added that Odaudu believed that the disparity in the quality of players in the Savannah and the Atlantic Conference led to his team’s loss.
“The result showed that Savannah had better players than us in the Atlantic Conference and with home court advantage.
“The person who won the dunk, dunked better, the person who won the three points shot made more baskets than people from our side, so everything worked in their favour.
“Don’t forget they were playing in the core north; they are at home, headquarters of basketball so they didn’t want to give up anything for us, but all in all it was good.
“The Benue-born gaffer thinks his Hoopers players had an outstanding game and would have easily been crowned the Most Valuable Player of the game if they had won,’’ it added.
According to the statement, Hoopers’ Solomon Ajegbeyi took his impressive form into the All Star Weekend game with another double-double performance, scoring 28 points and 15 rebounds while Emmanuel Balogun contributed 17 points and 2 assists.
“Emmanuel Balogun and Solomon Ajegbeyi stood out, and if we had won the All Star game, one of the two would have won the Most Valuable Player (MVP).
“Even without a prize given, it was fun, the crowd had fun, it was interesting, it was intense, it was just a 9 points game you could see it was very close.
“And not a normal blow out where they blow 15, 20 points. It was just 9 points and it was fun for everybody,’’ the statement said.
It quoted Odaudu as saying: “The result of the All Star Weekend will not be a reflection of the 2017 KPBL final.
“I don’t think it will be like that, it won’t be dominated by the north, and there are a couple of teams that will give Savannah a lot of fight’’.
England captain Harry Kane netted a hat-trick to guide Bayern Munich to an impressive victory against Stuttgart.
Kane’s goals, plus one from Kingsley Coman, helped Bayern end a three-game winless run in all competitions.
They faced a tough task against a Stuttgart side who sat back and limited their chances, leading Vincent Kompany’s side to enter the break frustrated and with the deadlock unbroken.
Bayern eventually found a way past Stuttgart’s steely defence when Kane drilled a low effort into the bottom corner from around 30 yards out after Joshua Kimmich overturned possession.
Former Nigeria goalkeeper, Dosu Joseph, is full of thanks to God after he miraculously survived another life-threatening automobile accident recent at Kara, along the Lagos-Ibadan Express Way, where a heavy-duty truck ran into his SUV.
Narrating his ordeal, the 51-year-old, who guided Nigeria to gold in the Men’s Football Tournament of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, broke the news in a statement on his social media handles on Friday.
“To God be the glory, another death escaped by Grace and Mercy of God. Me and my friend SM were at Enyo Filling Station after Ojodu Berger bus stop to get fuel on Wednesday, October 2, 2024, around 6 p.m. when this MACK truck fully loaded with iron, with registration number LND 470 XX, left the road and crushed my car beyond repairs. Thank God for life,” he stated.
This is the second time the soft-spoken club proprietor will cheat death by a whisker, having been involved in an accident in 1997 that ended his career at 23 and left his spinal cord in bad shape.
He helped Julius Berger win the Nigeria FA Cup in November 1997 shortly a memorable Olympic outing by keeping a clean sheet in the finals against Katsina United. The following year, he was involved in the auto along Ikorodu Road, Lagos, which not only cut his career short but also left him almost paralysed, ending his spell at Serie A club Reggiana.
The former Nigeria international, who also kept goal for Julius Berger FC, said the case has been reported to Isheri Police Station, Ogun State, where the driver is currently detained and the truck also seized.
According to him, the owner of the truck said he can’t fix the badly damaged SUV until after a year.
Ex – Super Eagles of Nigeria, Okwuchukwu Waobikeze has observed that sports development in Nigeria is going down.
According to him, grassroots sports is very important, without it, the administrators cannot get it right. So everybody should key into grassroots sports development, he said.
Waobikeze said this last Wednesday in an interview with sports journalists shortly after the Port Harcourt All Stars Independence football festival (OCTOBERFEST) at the Port Harcourt club, Rivers State.
He explained that for sports administrators to get it right, grassroots development is key. “They should be organising competition at the grassroots level to fish out the young ones for different sporting activities.
“Grassroots sports is very important so the administrators have to go back to the grassroots.
” Sports Development in Nigeria is going down we need to go back to the basics.
“Look at the just concluded Paris Olympics, Nigeria did not win any medal.
” Our football team did not even qualify for the Olympics. We are going down.
” If they should go back to the grassroots, they will get young ones in the games and talents will be developed.
” I started from school games, to youth games before playing for the national team. Now everybody wants to fly board to play professional football and a lot do not know the basics of the game.
” A lot of people did not know the little things about the game, they just want to play. It is not done so,” Waobikeze stated.
Kiadum Edookor
