Joel Ajayi

The Coordinator of the National 3×3 Basketball team and Chairman of FCT Basketball Association, Frank Jituboh has revealed that the ongoing maiden edition of Abuja 3×3 Basketball Invitational Tournament in the Federal Capital Territory will boost Nigeria chances at the forthcoming 2019 3×3 FIBA Africa Nations Cup in November.

The 3-day tourney which began on Friday saw a total of 23 teams Male and Female are in a fierce battle competing for the prizes.

He stated this on Friday after the match-day one inside MKO Abiola National Stadium in Abuja when the first edition of the 3×3 Basketball Invitational Tournament dunked off with teams a lot of expectations

Basketball 3×3 is a game that will last for a duration of   just 10 minutes with a team with a higher number will emerge as the winner

Jutioh expressed that, the competition will see the national team currently in camp preparing for the 2019 3×3 FIBA Africa Nations Cup billed for Kampala in Uganda from November 7 to 11, 2019  taking part in the three-day event.

According to him, as you can see that all the matches are heavily contested. It’s interesting and players really, really playing and we are seeing a lot of talents here and we hope that it will continue like that.

“First of all, you know that 3×3 is now an Olympic sport, so this is developmental. We are trying to make our youths conscious of the new sport and you can see they’re embracing it properly and hopefully we will later in the coming years be able to harvest some of these players that are going through this process for the benefit of the country.

“Now we need to create awareness for this new sport. So there is a need for a competition like this for you to see that there is a lot of benefit in playing 3×3.

“Here today, we featured three male National teams and three women team and all teams won their matches even before the time, so we are assessing their level of preparedness for the Africa Cup, and I am satisfied so far.

“Winner will go home with N300,000 while the first and second runners up will receive N150,000 and N100,000 respectively”

He equally revealed that competition aim is to further promote the sport which will feature at the Japan Olympic Games next year

Some of the results played on the  Matchday-1 includes Air warrior female team who beat the Black Gold 21-5 as the second game saw courts Queen whitewash FCT wings 21-3, as City Spank defeated APO Settlers 21-9

As for the Male category, Bruiser showed supremacy over Nigerian Prison beating them 21-9 while Grinders beat Dashi Mambas 21-12. as Ball Magician defeated team Fluency 21-15.

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