Lagos- Customs Basketball Club of Lagos on Friday defeated Union Bank of Lagos, 61-40 in the season’s opening match of the Atlantic Conference of DStv Men’s basketball league in Lagos.
Customs dominance in the four quarters gave no chance to the Union Bank team who were expected to have an easy ride judging by the caliber of players in their squad.
Led by Coach Scot Nnaji, Customs youthful side recoded a 21-8, 9-7, 16-15 and 15-10 to signal to all other contenders in the Atlantic Conference how well they can compete.
Nnaji told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) after the match that his team played well and deserved to be the winner.
”We did well today, and the confidence in our team gave us the victory, we expected more from our opponents but unfortunately they did not play well enough to beat us.
”It’s a good start and I hope we can continue like this and hopefully be rated among the best six teams in the conference,”Nnaji said.
Customs forward player, Emmanuel Balogun, whose pace and ball pass dictate the game and gave his team the victory, told NAN that his team’s win was achieved through good team work.
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”We played well and had a good team chemistry among ourselves. It’s a good result and if we can continue like this we will definitely contend for the title at the end,” Balogun said.
Coach Rotimi Savage of the Union Bank team said that his team did not give a good account of themselves allowing their opponents to dictate the pace of the game.
”It’s a very poor result, my team did not come into the game all through the four quarters, we will make adjustment as the league progresses,” Savage said.
Meanwhile Tijani Umar, the President, Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) told NAN that the federation was happy about the kickoff of the season stressingthat everything was set for a successful season.
”We are happy to begin the season today, we have all logistics in place for a successful season and we are confident at the end we will record a tremendous successful season.
”We are thankful to our sponsors Multichoice Nigeria for once again fulfilling their commitment in backing us.
”The federation is also busy with the senior national men’s team D’tigers’ four nations friendly match ongoing in South Africa, and also the FIBA Africa qualifying match against Burkina Faso on March 25 in Lagos,” Kumar said. (NAN)
