Basketball hoping to rebound

The D’Tigers could not make it to the 2010 FIBA World Basketball Championship in Turkey
By Ifeanyi Ibeh and Tolu Asaolu


October 3, 2010


Basketball has over the years become one of the most popular sports in Nigeria. Although not as popular as football, it is played in every part of the country and has come a long way since it was first introduced in educational institutions as far back as the 1930s.



By 1965 the first inter-regional basketball championship took place in Lagos but it wasn't until the mid-80s that Nigerian basketball was exposed to the outside world following the exploits of Akeem Olajuwon in the United States of America.

After an illustrious college career with the University of Houston, in Texas, Olajuwon was drafted into the National Basketball Association (NBA) by the Houston Rockets in 1984 and thus began the beginning of an illustrious career that would see the Lagos-born seven footer playing in the NBA till the 2001-2002 season.

Nigeria's NBA entourage

Olajuwon pioneered the appearance of Nigerians in the NBA, and many others followed the same route he took, from college to the NBA. These include Yinka Dare and Julius Nwosu who were drafted in the 1994-1995 season with Dare joining the New Jersey Nets, and Nwosu the San Antonio Spurs.

Nwosu only spent a season in San Antonio before heading to Russia, where he won the league title with CSKA Moscow, but Dare, a seven footer, went on to play four seasons in the NBA. He however died of a heart attack in 2004 at the age of 31.

The American collegiate system served as a breeding ground for Nigerian basketball players but not all of them ended up playing in the NBA. Most of them ended up in Europe, the Middle East and the Far East; most notably Tunji Awojobi.

The success story of Nigerian players hasn't however translated into success at the national team level as the best the country has achieved at the African Championship have been three third-place finishes, twice behind Angola and on one occasion behind Senegal.

The team has however been to the World Championships on two occasions the last of which was back in 2006, eight years after making a debut appearance at the 1998 championship.

Ladies set the pace

The women haven't fared any better than their men folks, but women's basketball is a relatively new sport in Nigeria.

It was not until the beginning of the decade that it gained an appreciable level of followership in Nigeria despite the exploits of the First Bank women's basketball team on the African continent dating back to the 1990s.

The club's exploits notwithstanding, success didn't come the way of the national team until effort was made by the Nigeria Basketball federation (NBBF) to lure American based players of Nigerian origin into the national team at the turn of the century.

Leading the returnees was Mfon Udoka who was able to form a formidable partnership with the Nigerian born Mactabene Amachree, who along with Udoka were plying their trade in the WNBA. The multi-talented Itoro Umoh, who had already represented the United States at the Pan-American Games, winning a bronze medal in the process, also joined the pack.

By 2003, the team swept all comers to the gold medal at the All-Africa Games in Abuja, claimed the African title the following year, before going on to the Olympic Games in Athens where, with the likes of Rashidat Sadiq and Mobolaji Akiode posted impressive figures on the floor - the team finished a respectable 11th with Udoka emerging as the tournament's rebound leader and second leading scorer, just as Umoh emerged as the assists leader.

Poor management

In 2006, the women's basketball team made a historic appearance at the World Basketball Championships but have since then struggled to make any positive impact, even on the continent. A situation Akiode, who now operates a foundation aimed at developing the potentials in girls - Hope for Girls - attributes to the poor management skills of the NBBF.

"The game has been poorly managed by the federation and it will only get worse as long as we have the wrong people in the federation," Akiode said in a recent interview.

Akiode isn't alone in taking a swipe at the NBBF. Joyce Ekworomadu, another member of the golden generation, believes it will be very difficult for the federation to convince overseas born Nigerians to play for the national team henceforth.

"There are so many Nigerian athletes that I know in the NBA, WNBA and Colleges that would love to play for their country, I mean who wouldn't," Ekworomadu said.

"However, they have either been a part of or have heard witnesses talk about such disorganisation that it discourages them to play for the country."

There are however those who are of the opinion that lesser dependence should be placed on the overseas based players and more on the development of the domestic game.

"Besides not having enough indoor facilities we don't have enough developmental programmes and games to develop the younger ones," said basketball coach Okolo Emmanuel of the Lagos Chariots.

"The home leagues are not well funded so we will continue to rely on the foreign based players and continue to play second fiddle to Angola whose national team consists mostly of players who play in their home league.

"Their league is well funded, their players are well paid and they play a lot of games unlike the Nigerian league where teams play far lesser number of games."