Kida lauds Nigeria’s U18 teams at FIBA Africa 3×3

President of the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF), Engineer Musa Kida has lauded the performance of the national U18 boys and girls teams to the just-concluded FIBA Africa 3×3 held in Mali.

Kida, having commended the efforts of the youngsters said that the country is blessed with the potential to dominate Africa and become a strong force in the world of basketball with adequate planning and preparation.

This, he said showed in the qualification of four different national basketball teams for the finals of the FIBA-organised tournaments since the new NBBF board was sworn in on July 21.

Kida expressed optimism that with better preparations, the future remains bright just as he eulogised the gold medal-winning D’Tigress and the D’Tigers for performing nothing short of miracles despite limited days of preparations for the just-ended 2017 AfroBasket championships.

“Only two weeks camping for D’Tigers, a team that played matches at the competition without really playing together and the kind of commitment the boys had, I cannot but commend them for performing this miracle,” he noted.

Kida stated that Nigeria have enough talents home and abroad to produce world-class athletes with three of the country’s players bagging individual awards at the 2017 men’s AfroBasket.

“Our captain, Ike Diogu is the best basketballer in Africa as he was chosen as the Most Valuable Player of the tournament {2017 AfroBasket}. He scored the most points at the tournament. Ikenna Iroegbu was also picked in the tournament’s best Five, while Afam Nwamu claimed the best 3 point shooter award.”

Kida assured that NBBF would leave no stone unturned to give D’Tigers adequate support and preparations needed for a successful World Cup campaign in February 2018.

He added that with early start and better preparations for the Sam Vincent-coached D’Tigress, he is confident that the team will not just be at the World Cup as mere participants, but would do the nation proud.