By Victor Kanayo
For the second consecutive season, Nigeria’s representatives, Rivers Hoopers, at season five of the Basketball Africa League (BAL), have qualified for the Playoffs, which will hold in Pretoria, South Africa, from 6 to 14 June.
Rivers Hoopers defeated FUS Rabat 79-71 on Thursday night to move to a 3-1 mark on the Kalahari Conference table.
With two games left to play, the KingsMen are second on the table behind Al-Ittihad of Egypt (4-0), while FUS Rabat sit third with a 1-3 record, and Stade Malien are on a 0-4 mark.
The KingsMen will battle the Egyptian champions for first place, while FUS and Stade Malien will slug it out for third spot.
Rivers Hoopers’ Head Coach, Ogoh Odaudu, is excited to have qualified for the 2025 BAL Playoffs with two more games to go.
“It feels really good to qualify for the finals again. It is the highest basketball stage in Africa, and everybody in Africa wants to be there. I am really, really happy that we are there now. We hope to take some time off to celebrate.”
“Right from the get-go, our target was to make the playoffs. Now that we have made the playoffs, we are going to get greedy,” he said.
Odaudu said the current target of the team is to go past their previous record of a third-place finish.
“We came in third last year. We are hoping that we are going to go a step further. Everybody wants that for us; they have pushed us, and we want to go a step further than what we did last year.
“Right now, we are enjoying the victory of last night and will get back to work this evening,” he said.
Rivers Hoopers will next play Egyptian champions Al-Ittihad on Saturday in the regular season.
