NBBF Premier League: Nigeria Customs beat Gboko Chiefs
Basketball
Published By: Isa Isawade
By Aderonke Ojo
Nigeria Customs Men Basketball Club of Abuja defeated Gboko City Chiefs 83-78 to emerge champions of the Savannah Conference in Abuja on Saturday.
The ongoing Nigerian Basketball Federation (NBBF) Premier Basketball Men’s Final Eight Championships, Savannah Conference second phase finals, ended on Saturday in Abuja.
In their previous matches, Nigeria Customs had played five and won all matches with 10 points, while Gboko City Chiefs played five matches and won four, losing one with nine points.
The match between both sides was a keenly contested battle as Nigeria Customs extended their winning streak to six games and maintained an unbeaten record in the six matches.
In the first half quarter, Gboko City Chiefs got off to an early lead, 8-7 before the Nigeria customs rallied back to tie the game and proceeded to 19-17 in the first quarter.
The Customs continued to dominate in the second quarter – 40-35. They played harder to secure the victory as they were losing 43-48 at the close of the third half of the game against the City Chiefs.
Nigeria Customs shot consecutive three-pointers stretch, the leading points.
The Gboko City Chiefs were left helpless and could barely do much to turn the game around.
They (Nigeria customs) fired up in the third quarter and held Gboko City chiefs to 61-51 points at the close of the third quarter.
- Customs intercepts cartridges, locally made guns in Ogun
- Customs confiscates 202 motorcycles from bandits in Katsina
In the fourth quarter, the Customs men maintained their winning efforts till the game ended 83-75.
This justified their high rating with unbeaten performance in the second phase of the ongoing NBBF event.
That was the last time the Gboko City Chiefs came close in the game.
After the match, the Coach of Nigeria Customs, Mohammed Abdulrahman, said his team’s ultimate target was to pick the BAL tickets.
“ We would try as much as possible as we can to pick the tickets. This win is just a great motivation to go and do better at the final four but our ultimate is BAL tickets.
“ It’s exciting to win all six games consecutively without a defeat but there are lots of good teams out there that we are looking forward to play against in the final four; for now, we are going to celebrate our victory.
“ We shoot the ball well and play good defence and that was what gave us the win today. But, we can aspire to do well before the commencement of the final four; we would be able to make adjustments,” he said.
On his part, the coach of Gboko City Chiefs Fanen Iornem, said that it was a welcome development for his team to have qualified, in spite of the loss to Nigeria customs.
“We qualified to the final four in the league. We thank God for the performance,” Iornem said.
