Former National team Basketball coach, Tony Nelson has lauded the performance of the D’Tigers at recently concluded FIBA World Cup Qualifiers, but has called on the NBBF to promote the Sport more back home.
Nigeria walked a tightrope heading into the qualifiers and didn’t have their own destinies in their hands.
Regardless, D’Tigers defeated Ivory Coast and Guinea, but lost to Angola. The results weren’t enough to see the team book a World Cup ticket.
Despite the shortcoming, Tony Nelson praised the team’s performance and has called on the Federation to build around those talents by improving on the local league.
“We did our best, it’s part of it, this proves that our basketball in Nigeria can really be better than this; the boys really did their best, the coaches and everyone of them, they really tried.
“Just as I said before, if you started early you will get to where you’re going to but if you don’t start early you will get to your destination late and you will accept what ever you meet.
“This is all we can give right now because this is the level we are right now. We can’t do more than this, we can’t give what we don’t have, the boys tried, they pushed themselves. This shows the talent we have in Nigeria we just need to come back home and improve our basketball league and just do better in the AfroBasket Qualifiers coming up soon.”
“It’s obviously the next step to take, it’s to try to make sure our basketball league is stable. We all observed what this boys played,.so imagine if we had a stable league, we should have something better than what we are having right now and that is what we should be looking for right now, we should be checking to improve our league.
“It should be the next step, Basketball should be everywhere in Nigeria, if that is done, our league will step up and we will be ready for future championships”
