Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) has named Alex Nwora as the new head coach of the men’s national basketball team, D’Tigers, ahead of the 2017 Afrobasket tournament.
This was made known on Wednesday by the President of the NBBF, Engineer Musa Kida ahead of the team’s preparation expected to commence on Friday August 12th, 2017.
According to Kida, the decision to appoint Nwora who guided Cape Verde to the 2013 Afrobasket where they defeated D’Tigers by 79 points to 76 was borne out of the desire to give qualified Nigerians the opportunity of making history with the national teams.
“We started this project with the D’Tigress with the appointment of Sam Vincent, Mfon Udoka, Peter Ahmedu and Okworogun Ochuko. There is no point giving out national team jobs to expatriates when we have Nigerians all over the world who are duly qualified to get the job done,” said Kida.
He enjoined all Nigerians to support Nwora who is no stranger to the African basketball scene where he coached Cape Verde from 2009 to 2013.
Nwora will be assisted by Kwara Falcons head coach, Aderemi Adewunmi and Gombe Bulls coach Abdulrahman Mohammed.
Adewunmi led his team to the top of the Atlantic Conferenec while Mohammed’s Gombe Bulls finished second in the Savannah Conference of the Kwese Premier Basketball League.
The list of invited players is expected to be announced soon.
Our dear NBBF ditch a proven, winning coach, who had taken us to territories previously unknown, because of flimsy reasons?! Many had previously praised the NBBF for being one of the better organised sports bodies… but not anymore.
This is taking us backwards no doubt- they had to reach back to a singular victory by Cape Verde to justify the appointment. Sad, they know he isn’t capable of coaching or motivating a largely US born and raised national team steeped in US college basketball culture. The federation is awash with sponsorship money so they can’t blame paucity of funds to pay expatriate as the reason for hiring local coaches. The question becomes what do they plan to do with the savings in payroll they’re prioritizing over competence and results ?
Question should rather be: Will this appointment last? Giving the yet-to-be-resolved issue about which board is authentic with FIBA. Currently FIBA does not recognize any of the 2 NBBF factions as authentic and have given them time to clean up its house. That should rather have been the focus at this time.