Storyline: Credit Ime Udoka, Will Voigt, and Tijani Umar for catapulting Team Nigeria to international prominence in men’s basketball. Written by 234Sports, Lagos, Nigeria.
Nigeria’s national basketball team is experiencing an all-time high. That’s because the team has had consecutive Olympic qualifications and won its very first Afrobasket title.
Courtesy: 360nobs.com
But those achievements may be just a tip of the iceberg. The country has enough eligible talent to be a constant contender for medal spots in the Olympics and World Championships.
This potential is not the result of a superior or impressive home-grown development program (the less said about Nigeria’s government-dominated sports administration the better). It stems from a large pool of American-born and/or -raised Diaspora who make personal sacrifices to play for Nigeria. There are many reasons why players choose to play for Nigeria, but the desire to connect with a homeland is high on the list.
Nigeria produced one of basketball’s greatest ever players in Hakeem Olajuwon. A fortuitous combination of height and a youth spent playing soccer and handball produced a center with never-before seen footwork, guard-like ball handling, and a decent jump shot. Unlike most of the players responsible for Nigeria’s recent success, Olajuwon was born in Nigeria and spent most of his first two decades in-country.
Ime Udoka (photo, nba.com)
But you need to go down the echelons of the NBA to find the player who’s most responsible for recent rise of Nigeria’s national basketball team. His name is Ime Udoka, a ‘journeyman’ player whose career was at the opposite end of the spectrum from Hakeem’s Hall of Fame effort.
But Udoka has had an undeniable impact on Nigerian basketball. Now an assistant coach with the San Antonio Spurs, Udoka was the Nigerian captain for a decade and the catalyst for a generation of ‘Nigerian-Americans’ to consider playing in Nigeria as an option for their basketball careers. Udoka’s sister, Mfon, had an even larger role with the women’s team, even though that team failed to qualify for the Olympics despite enough eligible talent to be a consistent top 5 team globally.
Nigeria’s victory at the 2015 men’s Afrobasket was long overdue. And it was achieved with some ease, despite the non-participation (through injury) of its best player and captain, Ike Diogu. The passion with which the players chanted the National Anthem at the Championship podium countered any suggestion that they were not ‘real Nigerians.’
Tijani Umar (photo, mynewswatchtimesng.com)
Finally the Nigerian team got past coaching and administrative issues that often blunted its potential to win major tournaments. Will Voigt, an experienced American who has coached internationally and in the NBDL, has been retained after his Afrobasket-winning exploits. And Tijani Umar, president of the Nigerian Basketball Federation, has done a great job administering a program in a sometimes chaotic government-led sports regime.
So, for the first time, the Nigerian National team has the ability to compete at the Olympics. But lifting the team to medal contention will require further strengthening. In a future article we’ll look at options for achieving that outcome.
