TheCable

The Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) has announced the appointment of US-based Nigerian, Alex Nwora, as the new coach of the national basketball team, the D’Tigers.

The announcement was made on Wednesday ahead of the 2017 men’s Afrobasket tournament to be hosted by Senegal and Tunisia from September 8 to 18.

Musa Kida, NBBF’s president, said Nwora was made D’Tigers new coach in order to give qualified Nigerians the opportunity of making history with the national teams.

It would be recalled that the newly appointed coach tutored Cape Verde in the 2013 edition of the Afrobasket Championship held in Cote d’Ívoire, where the island nation defeated D’Tigers by 79 points to 76.

“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,” he said.

The NBBF president added that the senior men’s national team would start training on August 12 ahead of the championship.

“We started this project with the D’Tigress with the appointment of Sam Vincent, Mfon Udoka, Peter Ahmedu and Okworogun Ochuko,” he said.

The NBBF president said Nwora is no stranger to the African basketball scene, having coached Cape Verde from 2009 to 2013.

Nwora would be assisted by Kwara Falcons head coach, Aderemi Adewunmi and Gombe Bulls’ Abdulrahman Mohammed.

Both Adewunmi and Muhammed had guided their teams to the top of the Atlantic and Savannah Conferences of the NBBF.