MakTown Flyers BC’s coach, Abdulrahman Mohammed is taking stock of his experience with the Makurdi-based club at this year’s Basketball Africa League (BAL) in Rabat, Sports247 reports.
Though The Flyers lost four of their five matches in the competition’s Savannah Conference that was decided in the capital of Morocco, Mohammed insists they had a rewarding outing altogether.
The experienced gaffer, who had an earlier outing in the same competition with Rivers Hoopers of Port Harcourt, opined that MakTown Flyers improved with every game and they learnt key lessons for future endeavours.
His verdict comes in contrast with critical comments from Nigerian basketball buffs, who noted that the only game the club won was their opening tie versus the competition’s whipping side, JCA of Cote d’Ivoire.
After winning that game 76-68, MakTown Flyers fell in all their subsequent encounters at BAL 2026 – being 72-97 to FUS Rabat of Morocco, 80-89 to Al-Ahly of Egypt, 77-86 to Club Africain of Tunisia and 62-79 to Ville de Dakar of Senegal.
Mohamned took another look at the roll of results and admitted that the going was pretty tough for his side, especially as new players who joined the club ahead of the championship could not quickly blend with their colleagues.
Despite all the odds, the men’s national team, D’Tigers perennial stand-in tactician declared defiantly: “We improved a lot in each game; though we made some mistakes that caused us to lose those games.
“One of the challenges we had was the issue of chemistry. Obviously, we have some new guys who only recently joined the team. That’s a big difficulty, because basketball is a team sport and you need to take some time to build proper chemistry.
“We also had a couple of defensive lapses at a time when we were actually supposed to be solid and make sure we didn’t give away the basket. In all, the players learnt many lessons from the competition.”
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