Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) has confirmed October 28 as date for the dunk-off in the Women’s Basketball Premier League, sports247.ng gathered.
While confirming the date for the abridged league to begin, and end on November 7, NBBF also disclosed that a total of 19 clubs from Atlantic and Savannah Conferences will participate in the 2018 Women’s Basketball League.
The NBBF also said conference preliminaries for the male league will hold in Port Harcourt and Abuja from November 13 to 17, while the national final holds in Lagos from November 20 to 25.
The federation further explained that the abridged format for the female league was decided because the FIBA Africa Zone 3 Clubs’ Championship zonal elimination starts in November.
Defending champions, First Bank of Lagos will lead nine others from the South-West, South-East and South-South, including newly admitted Mountain of Fire, also from Lagos, to Enugu for the Atlantic Conference preliminaries.
Nine teams from the Savannah Conference – North-West, North-East and North-Central – will battle for qualification in Abuja, ahead of which the preliminaries hold between October 28 and November 2.
Six teams from the two conferences will qualify for the national finals in Lagos holding between November 3 and 7, while the winner and first runners-up will represent Nigeria at the FIBA Zone 3 Women Champions qualifiers in Cotonou between November 12 and 15.
NBBF president, Musa Ahmadu-Kida said: “We thank the stakeholders for their patience and utmost believe in us when we promised earlier this year that come rain or shine, the federation was going to organise all leagues before the end of 2018.
“We are one of the few countries left in Africa whose representatives for the newly-introduced Afro League in 2019 have not been announced because our leagues haven’t been concluded.”
