Rivers Hoopers’ Head Coach, Ogoh Odaudu, whose dream of leading the Nigerian champions to their first Basketball Africa League (BAL) title this year was shattered by Rwanda’s APR in the quarterfinals on Monday night, has blamed the country’s inactive league for his team’s failure.

   The KingsMen fell one step short of repeating last season’s heroic run to the BAL semifinals as they lost their quarterfinal game 104-73 to APR, their largest loss margin at the championship.

  Reflecting on the loss, Odaudu said his players were rusty while highlighting the importance of regular domestic competitions as the KingsMen look to regroup and return to Africa’s elite competition.

  “One major problem that we are facing, (is that) we played against US Monastir, who just came off their championship game – they lost – but they have been playing for a long time. We played today against APR, who are still in the thick of their league… Rivers Hoopers have not played competitively since Morocco. It’s one of the problems that we have too. We hope the Nigeria Basketball Federation will change this (domestic league format), and then we are going to arrive at the BAL playing, and not just coming to try to get into game shape while we are at the tournament. ’’

  Odaudu also acknowledged that “too many things went wrong,” in Pretoria, South Africa with his side. It looked like it wasn’t going to be Rivers Hoopers’ night, as early in the game as the first quarter, where APR doubled the KingsMen’s points, leading 24-11.

  Despite some bright moments from South Sudanese-Australian forward, Madut Akec, who scored 19 points, had four assists and two rebounds, the KingsMen were outplayed in the entirety of the game.

  Raphiael Putney attempted to begin a second-quarter comeback with three consecutive threes, but APR were quick to deal with the surge, continuing their show: efficient on both ends of the court.

   Defending his team’s performance, Odaudu said: “What’s changed (is that) we are no longer playing in the semifinals.
We’ve been knocked out, but on a general note, I think we had a really bad day today. We didn’t play as well as we thought we could play, and it happens in basketball. We are not upset. We may be disappointed, but we are holding our heads high. Too many things went wrong…”