Ndejje University team confident of a good show
The men’s 3×3 basketball team from University of Ibadan has more than one reason to celebrate. The team, against all odds, got second position in the 3×3 tournament at the All Africa University Games held in July 2018, and with that success also booked their ticket to China.
Ndejje University 3×3 men’s teamUniversity of Ibadan will be one of the two men’s teams representing Africa at the 3×3 FISU World University League Finals in Xiamen, China from November 15 to 18, 2018.
Going into the tournament seeded 5th, they pulled off a string of impressive victories to finish with 5 wins out of 7 games played and managed to edge out ISEG, Senegal which may have been considered the favourite going into the qualifiers.
In a format similar to the European University Games, the All Africa University Games served as qualifiers for the 3×3 League Finals in China. The other men’s team to qualify from Africa is Ndejje University of Uganda, which finished in top spot.
Ajak Samuel, the captain of the Ndejje 3×3 team says “We are ready for the challenge to play at the world level. We believe we are good to go and are fully prepared mentally and physically by our coach Walker Obedi.”
“My teammates Salim Kisilu, Badhera Basheka and Ochera Innocent all are ready to play,” says the captain proudly of his teammates. “Our university was among the first African Universities to represent the continent in the first FISU 3×3 WUL Finals in 2015, and we had put up a good show.”
Senegal’s Institut Superieur d Entrepreneurship et de Gestion (ISEG) may have missed out on qualifying for the men’s event, but their women’s team more than made up for it. A Camara, M Kebe, Y Dieme and M Sene took their team to the top of the standings by winning all 5 games they played. The team had also made the Finals in China in the 2017 edition.
There were a total of 6 teams in the field and the second women’s team to qualify for the 3×3 League Finals is UNIDAF, also from Senegal.
57 universities from 18 African countries had participated in the week-long All Africa University Games, the multi-sport biennial event for university athletes in the continent.
A total of 17 African university teams were in contention during the Qualifying Tournament of the 3×3 FISU World University League Finals. All results, scores and details of the Qualifying Tournament can be found here.
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