Rivers Hoopers of Port Harcourt coach, Ogoh Odaudu described APR of Rwanda as very ‘formidable foes’ after the army-owned side sent his team packing from this year’s Basketball Africa League (BAL 2025).
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Sports247 reports that The Hoopers lost 104-73 during their quarter-final clash with the team that is officially known as Armee Patriotique Rwandaise, and Odaudu admitted it was a tough outing on Saturday afternoon in Pretoria, South Africa.
It means The Garden City side failed to reach the semi-finals as they did last year but, heading into this game, there had already been pointers of a Herculean task ahead of Odaudu and his players, as they earlier lost a classification game 89-81 against US Monastir of Tunisia and morale was low in their camp.
The KingsMen from Rivers State did put up a battling effort on Saturday, as their foreign imports like Madut Akec, Raphael Putney and Ahmed Doumbia led the way in points scoring, while Michael Okiki added his fair share of morale-boosting efforts as well, but all they tried was simply not good enough to turn the table. 
Nonetheless, rather than feel shamed by Saturday’s defeat, Odaudu recalled how his team beat the same opponent during the 2024 edition, then pointed out that the Rwanda outfit did a lot of recruitment before heading for this year’s competition and their preparations really paid off in a great way.
“APR are always a formidable foe. We knocked them out last year, but it’s not the same team this time. They made a lot of recruitments, and they are basically a formidable foe right now,” Odaudu conceded.
