D’Tigers not yet ripe for Olympic medal —NBBF boss

THE President of the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF), Tijjani Umar, on Wednesday declared that the participation of the senior men’s national basketball team, D’Tigers, at the 2016 Rio Olympics was an eye opener for the federation.

D’Tigers, who made their second Olympics appearance, after their debut at London 2012, secured the Rio 2016 ticket after winning the 2015 AfroBasket Championship in Tunisia, where they stunned Angola 74-65 to emerge African champions.

Addressing a press briefing in Abuja to herald the NBBF Division One Basketball Tournament holding between Friday {today} and November 26, Umar stated that there was no illusion on the ground that the D’Tigers would win any medal in Brazil.

Umar stated that the team’s participation was a continuation of the building process.

“I want to say that the participation of the national team at the Rio Olympics was a great eye opener. It continued the process of building the national team and building the structure.

“I don’t think anybody was under any illusion that that team was going there to win a medal in 2016. No, I don’t think so. But deep down in the team’s organisation and the federation, we knew it was going to be the continuation of the building process from 2012 when the team did not perform very well to something that should be better.

“A lot of Nigerians expected much more than what the team provided but we knew as the handlers of the team and the organisation knew it was a process.

Umar, however, submitted that with the abundant talents in the country, Nigeria would start vying for medals in basketball event as from the 2020 Olympic Games.

According to him, “the greatest thing is to put money on the table. We have the talents here to build the team but definitely money is the key factor.”