• We learnt vital lessons, says Jituboh
Nigeria’s male basketball team finished in disappointing 17th position out of the 20 teams that participated at the FIFA 3X3 World Cup in Manila, Philippine.
The poor performance not withstanding, leader of the Nigerian delegation, Frank Jituboh says he was satisfied with the result of his wards after what he described as an encouraging outing.
Speaking to the Nigeria Basketball Federation media department, Jituboh said that their first ever participation at such level was to garner the requisite experience while playing with top teams across the world.
Jituboh who is also the Chairman of Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Basketball Association said: “I am very satisfied with the performance of the boys being their first time at this level. The experience garnered here playing against the best teams around the world will be very important going forward.”
Stressing further, Jituboh said the win against Jordan who are number 16 in the latest FIBA 3×3 ranking is a great boost to the team.
“We are eagerly waiting for the revised ranking at the end of this month to see the effect of our World Cup outing.”
After losses to Ukraine, Croatia and Latvia at the tournament, he said vital lessons have been learnt.
“I will be reporting back to the federation when we arrive on Thursday with special emphasis placed on the need to have a 3×3 league in Nigeria which will help us have bigger pool of players for future selections.”
The team is expected to arrive in Lagos today aboard a 9:35am Qatar Airways flight at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport.
