Basketball: Odaudu seeks sixth title with Rivers Hoopers, return to BAL

Rivers Hoopers coach Ogoh Odaudu has expressed high optimism ahead of his club’s Nigeria Premier Basketball League campaign in Benin, Edo State. The Hoopers begin their title defence on Sunday, 27 October, against Delta Force in the Atlantic Conference.

Hoopers, the Nigerian representative at the 2024 Basketball Africa League (BAL), are the defending champions after their outstanding performance in Port Harcourt earlier this year.

Coach Odaudu, who is Rivers Hoopers’ longest-serving manager, hopes to increase his title haul to six with the Kingsmen.

Odaudu joined the team in 2009 and won consecutive league titles in 2011 and 2012, after their 2010 final defeat to Kano Pillars. They bounced back to winning ways by claiming the trophy in 2019, 2021, and 2023.

The target is BAL return

Coach Odaudu revealed that their last performance at the CDS championship in Abuja, which they won, has been a better challenge for them to reveal their weaknesses ahead of the league.

“We are as ready as we can be. We have been putting in a lot of hard work all the way from Port Harcourt, even before we competed in the CDS tournament. That tournament was made for us to actually test-run our players and see if we still have what it takes.

We proved to ourselves that it was a good stepping stone for us, and we have built on that success heading here. We are hoping to replicate the success in Abuja and pick one of the final four slots from.”

Odaudu reiterated, “Our goal is to win the league and go back to the Basketball Africa League next year.

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‘’Winning this conference is not an achievement. Well, you will have the bragging rights as conference champions, but the major thing is the final eight and winning the final eight. This is still the preparatory stage for us, and we are going to take every game as it comes.

“We are not underrating anyone. We are going to play hard, practice hard, and prepare for the final 8.

“Our goal is to win the league and go back to the BAL so we can continue from where we stopped. We don’t want to wait another one or two seasons before we go back there and start from scratch. We want to continue from where we stopped,” he added.

Odaudu is the reigning BAL coach of the Year, the first Nigerian to win the award after leading Hoopers to the BAL playoffs and third place at the 2024 tournament.