How Potters, Peaks book final ticket

The Savannah conference playoffs of the Vmobile Premier Basketball League was rounded off last weekend at the sports hall of the Ahmadu Bello stadium, Kaduna with Niger Potters basketball club of Minna and Jos based Plateau Peaks joining their Atl;antic conference counterpart, Ebun Comets and Dodan Warriors basketball clubs of Lagos in the grand finale.

Both Savannah conference teams like their Atlantic conference counterparts finished second and third in their conference placing with twenty points each but unstaged the conference leader Kano Pillars who led other teams to the Kaduna battle but failed to make it to Lagos for the battle for becomes Nigeria king of the ‘Court’.

Potters who did not leave anyone in doubt as to their readiness to be in Lagos, handed down a whopping 32 points deficit of 87-55 points defeat to Bauchi Nets basketball club who appear not prepared for the challenges of making it to Lagos, the Abdul Kuta tutored Minna based team dispatched hard fighting Peaks in the day-2 of the conference playoffs 71-63 of 19-18, 15-10, 22-24 and 15-12.

The Abubakar Usman propelled Potters engaged Pillars who had hoped of upsetting its rival went all the way to beat the Pillars 78-56 points of 18-06, 16-14, 25-25 and 19-11 for a maximum six points after three days of non-stop action.

Peaks on the other hand defeated Pillars in its first match watched by capacity crowd that thronged the sports hall of the Ahmadu Bello Stadium by 86-72 points of 21-16, 28-20, 15-18 and 20-18.

The Jos-based team who rellied more on the experience play of Nigeria international small forward Stanley Gumut, Job Nelson and Ibrahim Tat could not save from defeat in the hands of Potters losing by 71-63 but came out strongly in their last game against depleted Nets with a massive 24 points difference of 84-60 points (24-09), (13-16), (12-16) and (35-19).

Potters coach, Kuta says this is Potters year of glory banking on the power play of his team to win the league this year.

The former player said, “Our strength is our secret weapon, as you can see that the players never wear out in the entire duration of each games.

“Fourth quarter is where we usually take our opponents to the clear, we allow them to do whatever they like with the first three quarters but came out strongly in the fourth quarter and we hope to carry over these strategy to Lagos during the grand finale where we hope to win the league shield after a long wait,” Kuta said.