ZENITH BASKETBALL LEAGUE: Coaches Lament Heavy Defeats in Second Phase

ZENITH BASKETBALL LEAGUE: Coaches Lament Heavy Defeats in Second Phase

Two coaches of women basketball teams have bemoaned the heavy defeats suffered by their teams in the second phase of the Zenith Bank-powered Women’s Basketball League which started in four centres at the weekend.

In the first round of games at the Liberty Stadium, Ibadan, which is for South West centre, Ogun Babes lost 110-30 to First Bank basketball team. The whopping 80-point win did not go down well with coach Peter Akindele, who led the Ogun State team to the competition.

In the second match, Ogun Babes also lost by 60 points (90-30) to Dolphins.

The story was not different for coach Sandy Aina and the Oluyole Babes as they lost 104-31 against Dolphins basketball team.

Aina bemoaned the 73-point defeat of her team. Only yesterday, First Bank also defeated Oluyole Babes 95-23. It was a 72-point win for the defending champions.

Coach Akindele of Ogun Babes said: “We only came with 10 players and most of them are still in secondary school but because of the time they fixed this event, they are not able to make it.

“We had problems with training because we don’t really have more time to train; we never knew when they were going to fix the start of the second phase. Our players did their best because we played against the best teams in the country.”

Coach Aina of the Oluyole Babes said losing to First Bank and Dolphin was not strange because of the strength of these two teams.

“Actually, the games were so interesting but we can’t compare ourselves with the teams we played against in terms of everything. The players did their best, it’s either one wins or one loses. I have told the players not to think too much about it as we should think about the next game.

In Akure, the South East centre, Deepwater earned 20 walk-over points as Coal City team did not show up for the match.

Action continues today in Ibadan, Akure, Zaria and Abuja.

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