Rookies U18 win 2012 ipNX Rookies Basketball Tournament

Rookies’ basketball academy U18 men team Sunday emerged winner of the 2012 ipNX Rookies Basketball Tournament at the Police College, Ikeja, Lagos with a 46-41 points victory over Warriors Basketball Academy.

The winner, Rookies, trailed their opponent by 08-16 points at the end of the first quarter but came back strongly into the game to win the second and third quarter (16-08, 14-05) to take a nine points advantage going into the last quarter with a 38-29 points superiority.

 The Jonathan Odia tutored Rookies however, lost the last quarter to the Warriors Academy by 08-12 points but was not enough to turn the table against them as they run away with a 46-41 points win to become champion of one of the foremost youth competition in Nigeria.

Rookies Academy youthful forward Abdulhakim Ado emerged as the tournament most promising and most valuable player while the duo of Elizabeth Balogun and Blessing Odia of the Royal Rookies team winner of Under 18 women competition were adjudged the most promising player and most valuable player in the women cadre.

 Raptors Academy Lagos and High Flyers basketball team, Warri, Delta State won the Under 14 and Under 16 men categories respectively.

 Tournament initiator and coordinator Coach Mark Balogun told a cross section of the media that he is satisfied with the level of participation and promised that the annual tournament will continue to get better.

The ipNX Rookies tournament has continue to serve as avenue for the recruitment of young players by top clubs in Nigeria, some of the players who were discovered from the Rookies’ tournament in the past include USA-based Churchill Odia (Comets BC and Nigeria national team); Daniel Dawodu played club competition for Union Bank BC and once captained Nigeria U19 national team in 2007 among others.