President of the Nigeria Basketball Federation, NBBF, Tijjani Umar has commended the players and officials of the senior national men’s team for the sacrifices they made while representing the country at the recently concluded Afrobasketball Championship in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.

In a message to the team as they departed Abdjan after the competition, Mr. Umar regretted that the team could not meet the target of winning the championship but expressed hope that despite the loss, the team could rise again to do the country proud.

“It is still my firm belief that our team had all the trappings of a great team and great teams to my knowledge have the greatest propensity to experience adversity and their greatness shows in the way they rise again after faltering,”he wrote.

Stressing that he imagines that “everyone is disappointed and frustrated with the outcome in Abidjan and hopefully will also be trying to figure out where and when we lost the handle,” the NBBF boss added, “let me use this sober moment to thank you most sincerely for the sacrifices and hope that  we can in the near future pull up together to redeem our name and put smiles back on the faces of our devastated fans around the world.”

The team handled by Ayo Bakare won all three group matches against Mali, Congo and Cameroon as well as the second round match against the Central Africa Republic before losing narrowly 63-64 to Senegal in the quarter final.

Co-captain of the team Ike Diogu while expressing sadness at the loss, apologised to Nigerians and assured that they were more determined to improve fromwhere they stopped because “We appreciate the opportunity given to us to reprsent our country and the support from our fans back home. We promise to come back stronger and win the championship because we are capable of doing just that.”