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By Joe Apu
Imo Heartland Basketball Club, Owerri has emerged champions in the inaugural edition of the Southeast Basketball Invitational Championships.
Heartland defeated the host team, Coal City Basketball Club of Enugu by 43-42 points at the Indoor Sports Hall of the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium.
Despite the heavy downpour which affected the finals, the final game lived up to expectations as both teams displayed aggression, energy, passion, and scintillating basketball skills to the admiration and excitement of the fans, supporters, and lovers of the slam-and-dunk game.
The 4-day competition, which tipped off on June 8, 2022 and organised by the Southeast Basketball Association, had in attendance the fice states that make up the Zones – Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo competing for the star prize.
Addressing the players from his base in the United States, a board member of the South East Basketball Association and silver medalist at the 2017 Afrobasket, Kelechi Anuna reiterated that both the active players and veterans in the diaspora whose origin is from the zone are committed to taking the game to the next level. He reassured that the crisis rocking the country’s federation would not deter their focus and vision.
“We are condemned to the goals and aspirations of the talents that abound in the South East and will continue to do our best in the repositioning of the zone notwithstanding the challenges that we are faced with the recent ban placed on international competitions by the Federal government,” he said.
The visitors, Heartland started the competition on a brighter note, edging past team Ebonyi in the first game, lost two straight games to Abia and Enugu respectively, and scaled through to the semifinal to defeat Abia by 35-33.
While the Coal City Kings, basking in the euphoria of the home support, dominated and outclassed all their opponents enroute to the final but lost one game to Anambra also by a slim margin of 24-25.
Similarly, Team Abia, one of the exciting sides in this year’s competition, possessed quality, teamwork, ball distribution, skills, and physicality but unfortunately lost in the final quarter of the semifinal to Imo.
