Ebun Comets of Lagos on Tuesday defeated Oluyole Warriors of Ibadan 52-48 at the ongoing 2023 Nigeria Basketball Premier League at the Obafemi Awolowo Stadium in Ibadan.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the win was the second win in three matches for Ebun Comets, after their opening day loss to Kwara Falcons on Sunday.
In another Match Day 3 game, Hoop and Read basketball club of Lagos whipped Invaders of Ekiti 85-60 for their second win also in three games.
NAN reports that seven clubs are playing in the Ibadan Centre of the Atlantic Conference of the league.
The other clubs participating in the league at the Ibadan Centre are Impressions of Delta, Ondo Raiders and Kwara Falcons.
Speaking on their match, Ayodele Bakare, the coach of Ebun Comets, told NAN that loss of concentration and match rustiness affected his young team’s performance.
“When you play for just a couple of weeks every year for three or four years, it will always take its toll.
“But this is still not a good excuse for some of the things that the players are not doing well.
“They are individual player responsibilities which shouldn’t matter whether you’ve not played in a long while.
“Things like boxing out and others are individual player responsibilities. Teams concepts get affected by long layoffs and these are not the only things we are struggling with,” he said.
The coach added that their next match against Ondo Raiders was going to be a very tricky game.
“First, we can’t do what we did today (Tuesday) against them (Raiders), which is we didn’t get up for the game.
“In the first quarter against the Warriors they just ran races around us, but basketball is a game that’s heavily dependent on the mental as well as the physical.
“We didn’t do the right dribbles, we couldn’t do anything right and the first thing we got to do was to have the mindset that every team here can beat us and get up for the game.
“We have to focus on whatever the opposing team’s strategies are and tirelessly execute them.
“This competition is a marathon and not a sprint. All teams are fighting to qualify and stay in the Premier League and ensure they are in the top four.
“So, making the top four is our objective here and winning enough games to stay in the league is the main goal.
“When we get to the conference final eight we can begin to play one game at a time,” he said.
Kayode Ademulegun, the assistant coach of Invaders, on his part said their game was a good one and they learnt many lessons for usage in subsequent matches.
Ademulegun said while his players gave a good fight, the better side still won the match.
“We will come out better and harder in our next match. Today (Tuesday) the boys lost many of the free throws and this affected our overall performance.
“We will work on our players mistakes that we observed today (Tuesday) and ensure that we win our next match,” he said.
NAN reports that action in the competition will resume on Wednesday with Ebun Comets taking on Ondo Raiders, Impressions facing Invaders and Kwara Falcons meeting Oluyole Warriors.
