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Sports
September 2, 2025 by Our Reporter
John Idoga put up 18 points as Rivers Hoopers began their Nigeria Basketball Premier League title defense with a comfortable 83-61 win over Kwara Falcons in Port Harcourt on Monday.
The reigning champions who are seeking a three-peat of NBPL titles opted for a mix of youth and experience in their Starting Five, as vice-captain Nwaiwu Buchi Vincent, Michael Daramola, and Samuel Sani featured alongside Victor Sunday and new recruit Favour Komene.
The KingsMen quickly established their dominance with a 9-2 run, with Victor Sunday and Michael Daramola particularly impressive in the opening minutes. But the Falcons fought back valiantly to reduce the deficit to four points as the first quarter ended 23-19 in favour of Rivers Hoopers.
Coach Ogoh Odaudu rang a few changes in the second quarter, and with the introduction of team captain Victor Koko Anthony providing more defensive stability as well as the industry of Samuel Sani and John Idoga, the KingsMen showed dominance to clinch the second quarter by 11 points, with the score at 45-30 heading into the halftime break.
The third quarter was more of the same as Rivers Hoopers outscored Kwara Falcons by 10 points, for a 72-47 lead heading into the fourth.
With victory in sight, Coach Ogoh Odaudu elected to give his team’s new boys a good run of game time, only re-introducing Buchi and Daramola in the final three minutes of the fourth quarter, which ended 11-14 to Kwara Falcons.
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Reacting to his fourth quarter strategy, Odaudu said: “By the end of the third quarter the game was almost over, and there was no way they [Kwara Falcons] were going to come back. There were a lot of new faces on the team, and I wanted to see how well they would do. I think they held their own, put a lot of pressure on the ball and ran the lanes very well.”
In the end, the KingsMen did enough to earn a comfortable 22-point victory over Kwara Falcons as the final score stood at 83-61.
Aside from John Idoga who scored a game-high 18 points, Favour Komene (11) and Samuel Sani (10) also hit double figures for the KingsMen, while captain Victor KAnthony Koko and Michael Daramola put up 9 points each to cement a result which was satisfactory for Odaudu.
“I think it was a good game, even though it was the first game for us. We have a couple of new guys, and we’ve not quite gelled together yet, but all in all I think it was a good game. 22 points is not easy. And kudos to the Kwara [Falcons] team too; they had limited numbers, but they gave us a good fight. Hopefully we’ll come back better in the next game and take care of a lot of things that we did not quite do right this time around,” he said.
Both teams will square off in the return fixture at the same venue by 4pm on Wednesday, 3rd September.
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