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| Col. Samuel Ahmedu |
A board member of the Nigeria Basketball Federation, Col. Samuel Ahmedu (rtd) is elated with the D’Trigress’s opening day victory against Mozambique at the ongoing FIBA Women Afrobasket Tournament in Mali.
Reacting after the team’s 80 to 69 points victory which has seen them stretch their winning record to 5 wins in 7 meetings, Ahmedu said winning the first game which is usualy more difficult especially against a very tactically sound team like Mozambique is something to be happy about.
Ahmedu who is a high ranking FIBA Technical Commissioner described the Mozambican team as a well-oiled machine despite being at the early stage of rebuilding their team.
“We are happy that we won. It doesn’t matter, whether it’s 11, 5 or 3 points, a win is a win. It’s good to start well.
At a stage we were running away with 17points but they fought back in the last quarter in a desperate mode and reduced it to 11points.
The international representative on the Engineer Musa Kida led NBBF board revealed that apart from the results, he noticed that the girls were in the best physical conditions while exhibiting their 'staying power'.
“The major positives that I have taken from this game are that even at the end of the game, it was obvious that our team could go another half.
Apart from that, he said, “We have not left everything on the court, we just played to win and we trailed only once throughout the game. It shows we have the staying power and we have so many offensive weapons.”
Ahmedu described D’Tigress team as one that can go physical if situation warrants.
“We have physical players. Aisha Mohammed is physical, Cecilia Okoye is physical, Evelyn Akhator is physical too. So we do have some physical players, but we don’t let our strength determine our game, we try to let our skills determine our game."
Ahmedu added that it was good to be physical so that the team will not be intimidated in a situation where their opponents decide to go hard and tough on the court.
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