Daily Independent Online.
*
Tuesday, August 24, 2004.
Inadequate preparation mars D’Tigress
Olympic outing
Stories by Peter
Edema
Snr.
Correspondent,
Lagos
Nigeria presented a women basketball team
in the ongoing Athens Olympic Games that is big, strong and quick, but lacked
Olympic experience.
The inexperience proved to be a major
disadvantage at the Games ending on August 29 because of inadequate
preparations.
D’Tigress that raised hopes in its
opening game against Australia after pushing the Opals hard for most part of
the game before dropping it 73-85, eventually lost all its preliminary games.
It lost 73-79 to Japan, 68-83 to Brazil, 58-93 to Russia and 83-6 to
Greece.
In the second game against Japan, despite
leading the Japs for the greater part,they lost concentration in the last four minutes allowing the
Japs to coast to victory with 79-73 points. The game against Greece and Brazil
was no different from the Japanese game.
What was apparent in their games was that
the team struggled to make the right decisions down the stretch and it cost
them the game. Such mistakes are a result of a team that was yet to get its
synergy right. It lacked the mental toughness needed to hold on when the going
gets tough.
The team found itself in certain situation
during the preliminary games and did not know how to get out of such situations.
For example, in the game against Japan, it failed to close down one of its
three-point shooters, Taeko Oyama, with four minutes remaining and she punished
Tigress with a bomb to put the Asians in front for good at 72-70.
Mental toughness, according to Dr. Adamu
Ahmed, Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) technical committee chairman, could
only be achieved after playing together for a long time with the players
understanding themselves.
“You can only get the mental toughness after playing
together for a long time. When you play together for a long time like the
Australians and the Brazilians, the players understand themselves very well and
even know how to psyche themselves up,” said Dr. Ahmed.
But this cannot be said of D’Tigress
as most of the players got together for the first time in May in Germany. The
team played few matches before the commencement of the Olympics, the Diamond
Ball tournament, an invitational tournament in Turkey and some friendly games
in Germany that don’t really matter.
The team could hardly put its act together
as several turnovers were committed.
The team transition game was faulty. Few members of the team can take
outside shots. The team made most of its points from the paint. Since other
teams in the group realised that D’Tigress cannot shoot from the outside,
they simply choked the inside.
“Most of our points came from lay-ups
and second shots which are not supposed to be. When you are good at outside
shots, you draw the defence to yourself giving you the opportunity of
effectively playing the inside game,” said Coach Alabi Adelanwa.
D’Tigress first point guard choice,
Umoh Itoro said the loss to Japan was a very disappointing one, adding,
"in the crucial moments, when we needed to execute, we took bad shots or
turned the ball over."
D’Tigress forward, Mfon Udoka, said
after the loss to Brazil, "We played hard but made many turnovers, and
these mistakes cost a lot against a team with fast guards, while Mactabene
Amachree echoed her stand saying, "We played as hard as we could, then had
a blackout. We earned the experience and hopefully we can be back in four
years. Brazil deserve all the credit; they have been here before and know how
to win games."
Brazilian forward, Janeth Arcain, said of
D’Tigress, "They have a better team than their results suggest. It
wasn’t an easy game for us", while the Brazilian head coach, Antonio
Barbosa, noted that, "Nigeria does not look like an African team. I would
say it looks more American, since it has NBA and NCAA players in its roster.
Their technique is American as well.
D’Tigress preparation for the
Olympics was below par and this was evident from its games.
The sports ministry on the pretext of
inadequate funds jettisoned the federation three-phase training programme that
would have knocked the team together for the Olympics.
The federation has planned that the home
base players camp in Abuja with selected ones joining their colleagues in the
United States for the second phase of the training programme. After the US
camping session, the last 15 players would go to Germany where the team of 12
players would have been selected. This was not to be as it was the camp in
Germany that materialised. To worsen the situation, the ministry insisted that
it could not accommodate more than 15 players and this eventually sealed the
federation hope of inviting more players to allow the coaches make their
choice.
The sports ministry in total disregard to
technical matters, refused to accredit Coach Adewumi Aderemi, one of the
coaches that qualified the team to Athens for the Olympics. This singular act
created a lot of vacuum in the team’s bench, as two coaches are grossly
inadequate for the sort of job required at this level of the game. Aderemi
would have been of great assistance to the team having been with the players
for long. Aderemi non-accreditation, it was learnt, was because D’Tigress
was not a medal prospect in the Games, hence it did not deserve three coaches.
Despite the not too impressive outing, in
the words of the team Head Coach, Sam Vincent, “We could have played
better than we did.” "But inexperience and pressure proved
overwhelming for us.
"For me, the future of Nigerian
basketball is bright, because the talent is there and everyone involved is
willing to develop it."
"It's been a tough tournament. We
struggled, we fought, we played hard, but we didn't have the experience and the
maturity needed. In every game we learn something new.
“I tell my players to keep their
heads high. We have what it takes to become a better team. People back home can
be proud of what this team has accomplished.
“When you leave Africa, you learn how
difficult it is to compete at this level. It will take us some more trips to
get more experience," he concluded.
