Blame NBBF for Tigress Poor Outing
Africa's sole representative in the female basketball event of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, Nigeria's D'Tigress' poor run in group-A where they ended their debut without a win has been put at the door step of the Nigeria Basketball Federation, NBBF. The coach Sam Vincent and Scott Nnaji tutored ladies poor performance where they lost to Australia (85-73), Japan (79-73), Greece (83-68), Brazil (82-63) and Russia (93-58) received commendation from basketball faithful back home, but slammed the Nigerian basketball house as lacking in focus a factor which they claimed have impeded the growth of the game in the country, reports Nigeriasports.com.
They cited the in activities back home where the over 5,000 active male and female players have been rendered useless for over one year and queried the rationale behind the continuous existence of the present board of the NBBF.
Mike Davids - Former coach of Indian Language secondary school: says the fault is not that of coach Sam Vincent and his crew as this is their first outing and so should not be judged with the Olympics results.
We have to give him and his crew more time because most of our local coaches lacked the technical depth to tinker the national team at international competition like the Olympics.
But I want to suggest that hiring a foreign coach from the United States of America is not the best in the first place, in other words if the NBBF decides to do away with Vincent I want to appeal to them to look towards Europe because international basketball is now played more there than the showmanship the Ameri-cans are known for.
Emeka Amuneke - Former Dodan Warriors and Ebun Comets basketball player: I want to say the fault of the poor performance of the Tigress is not that of the coaches but the federation. Coach Vincent and his crew have done their best and I also want to commend the players for not disgracing Nigeria and indeed Africa at the Olympics.
Fatai Nureni - Customs basketball club forward: The problem with Nigeria basketball has nothing to do with coaching but that of management, so people should not crucify the coaches and their players but NBBF should be held responsible for what has befallen this beautiful game in our country.
Adeleke Badmos - Sports journalist with Daar communications: I think the problem the team had was the option of coach Vincent coaching Nigerian team from abroad, though we don't know if that was the agreement between him and his employer, NBBF, but that was the first mistake on the part of the federation and the head coach. It would shock every one that the coach may not have had hand in picking some of the players we saw wearing the country's color at the Olympics as we had on good authority that some of them were imposed on him by the power that be.
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