As Nigeria’s women basketball team, D’Tigress, prepare to tackle Australia, Canada, and France at this year’s Olympic Games, coach of Mountain of Fire Ministries (MFM) women’s basketball team, Ochuko Owolabi, believes the African champions will find it tough.
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This is the opinion of the coach who based her verdict on poor preparations for the Nigerian squad.
Coach Ochuko added that she is of a view that D’Tigress should have opened camp and started training by now, in order for the players to blend and understand one another better.
Although the competition will not start until July 26th, Ochuko pointed out that other teams that D’Tigress will tango at Paris 2024 have already started training long before now, which she believes will give them an edge over the Nigerian players.
She, however, concluded with a charge to the Nigerian lasses to play their hearts out and try the best they can in order not to be disgraced.
She submitted: “It will be hard, it will be tough. Why? Because they will be playing against top teams that are well prepared for this competition and they have trained for a very long time for it.
“Our own team has also trained, but it’s for a very short time. We have people that have not played together, and we gather them for a very short time to go and play against other people who have been training with one another for a very long time.
“It won’t be easy. However, even if they are going to lose, it should not be a disgrace. If they are going to beat us, let’s give them a good fight.”
Coach Ochuko hinted that a consolation for her would be if each of the Nigerian players showed the best of their individual talents, even if they would not be able to excel as a collective squad.
