29/12/2016
Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) President Tijani Umar, President has said the federation was planning to promote four teams to the DStv and Zenith leagues after the 2017 league season.
Umar who made this known on Tuesday while briefing the media after the federation’s board
meeting in Abuja also said four will be relegated to the lower league at the end of next season as well.
“We are going to have two teams relegated from each conference and we will promote two teams from each conference to the next level, otherwise everyone will get stuck in one place,” he said.
“We also hope to re-introduce the double header. That is, teams playing away twice when they travel out and to re-introduce the inter-conference road trips, intercontinental travels.”
While commending the performance of the country’s representatives at the continental level, the NBBF President said the federation had perfected plans to give teams more exposure to prepare them for better performance in years to come.
Nigerian champions First Bank and Kano Pillars came third and fourth respectively in FIBA African Championship Competition in Egypt recently, beating highly rated teams along the way.
On his part, NBBF’s Head of Media Patrick Omorodion said, “we are going to ensure that our teams will have more playing time which will help them to do better in international competitions.
“We are trying to ensure that our national leagues will be able to produce players and teams that can represent the nation at any international competitions,” he said
