Afrobasket Qualifiers: D'Tigers Wait On Burkina Faso, FIBA

The Nigeria Basketball Federation are still in the dark and uncertainty on the cancelled 2015 African Basketball Championship qualifiers match supposed to be played with Burkina Faso last weekend in Ouagadougou.

The Burkina Faso Basketball Federation cited logistics problems as a reason for the cancellation and requested both legs of the qualifiers be played in their country which NBBF rejected.

The National Basketball Team coach of Nigeria D'Tigers, Sani Ahmed, said he will make sure the administrative problems will not in any way affect his team and claims that D'Tigers are ever ready for the matches at anytime set.

According to standing FIBA rules, Burkina Faso are to forfeit the match and pay for all cost of preparing the D'Tigers for the game just as requested by the NBBF, but still waiting for a reply to mails sent to FIBA.

Countries that have already qualified for the 2015 Afrobasket are Morocco, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Angola, Uganda, Tunisia and Cameroon.

Dream Team Defence Worries Siasia

Dream Team VI coach, Samson Siasia has said he still has a lot of work to do on his defense if they are to get better as a team.

The Nigerian U23 team will host the Gabon U23’s next weekend in Abuja, in a return leg of the 2015 All Africa Games qualifier, having already won 4-1 in Libreville last weekend.

But Siasia says he and his assistants are not being carried away, saying they understand they must put in more effort to improve the team, especially the defense.

“We know we still have a lot of work to do on the team especially in the defense,” Siasia said.

“We have showed very good signs in all the games we have played but we the coaches know we are not at our best yet.

“We need to improve the team as a whole, but we have to pay more attention to the defense because that is the department that I think needs more work on.”

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NFF Sets World Cup Target For Falcons

Director of Technical at the Nigeria Football Federation, Emmanuel Ikpeme, has charged the Super Falcons to make sure they qualify for the knockout stages of the FIFA World Cup in Canada.

Speaking during his official welcome of the team to camp for their upcoming qualifiers, Ikpeme congratulated them for winning the Africa Women Championship (AWC), adding that they should extend their dominance to the world stage.

“You must work hard by your actions, conduct and utterances. It is not impossible to go beyond the group stages; it is football we are talking about. You can go to Canada and become an upstart and scatter all earlier permutations and make a statement to the whole world.”

“It is not a question of coach inviting you to camp and you just come here and struggle to make the team to the World Cup and them you go there and just relax.”

“You girls must go beyond the group stage at the World Cup . It’s not a question of playing friendly matches where you win by big margins, your ultimate goal is to go to Canada and exceed all expectations.”

“You must come out of that group D. I want you guys to tell Nigerians that you are not only champions of Africa, but can conquer the world. Your ultimate goal is to go to Canada, qualify from your group and ultimately surpass any earlier record,” he said.

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