Barely two days to the tip off of the 2025 Nigeria Premier Basketball League (NPBL) season finale, Rivers Hoopers Head Coach Ogoh Odaudu is relishing the challenge of chasing a third straight league title.
Rivers Hoopers, who won back-to-back league titles for the third time in the club’s history by claiming the 2023 and 2024 NPBL titles unbeaten, will look to become only the third club to win three consecutive championships in the history of Nigerian basketball (following Lagos Islanders 1997-2001 and Kano Pillars 2008-2010). The target is to become the first to achieve such a feat in the last fifteen years – a prospect which has kept the seasoned gaffer preoccupied.
“The Final Four has been on my mind. I eat, sleep, and dream [about] the Final Four now. I’ve not had a good night’s sleep since the end of the Final Eight. But I’m a little bit relaxed now as we approach the Final Four. We’re still working hard to correct some of the little things that we’re getting wrong, just as you saw at practice today. But I think we’re going to be good,” Odaudu said.
The veteran tactician has overseen one of the most dominant spells in Nigerian basketball history, with his Rivers Hoopers side suffering just two defeats across six domestic seasons between 2019 and 2025. The latest of those defeats came in the form of a one-point (79-80) loss in overtime to Lagos Legends on Day Four of the Final Eight.
While the defeat dented the team’s quest for another unbeaten season in Nigerian basketball, the 2024 Basketball Africa League (BAL) coach of the year believes that playing against formidable opposition under the pressure of performing in front of the home crowd (during the Final Eight) will help his team handle such situations better in the season finale.
“I don’t think we played to our expectations. I think we were a little overconfident coming into the Final Eight, and also because of the fact that we were playing at home, we thought we were going to come around and roll over everybody. But we got stiff opposition, which is something that I really like, [as] I like playing under pressure. But we have worked out real good now, and they [the players] have a taste of how the home crowd is going to be, so I think we’re going to be a bit more relaxed in the Final Four and hopefully do a lot better,” he insisted.
Games at the 2025 NPBL Final Four, which is scheduled to hold between 21st and 23rd November, will be played in a round robin format, with hosts Rivers Hoopers, Lagos Legends, Gboko City Chiefs, and Nigeria Customs vying for Nigerian basketball’s biggest prize and a ticket to the BAL season six. A task which this season, comes with heightened expectations for the reigning champions.
“We’ve been given stern orders to win this (Final Four), so there’s a lot of pressure. “But of course I love the pressure, and I hope we’re going to play the way we’ve been practicing.”
As the Final Four draws closer and with a growing level of anticipation, coach Odaudu disclosed that rather than confident, he feels optimistic about his team’s chances of retaining their title.
“I never feel confident, [and] I do not know why. Even if it’s [playing against] a team which I know that by the end of the day we’re going to beat them by twenty points, I’ll still have butterflies in my stomach. As the game progresses, that’s when I actually calm down. So, I can’t say I’m confident, but I’ll say that we’re ready and optimistic.”
The Hoopers will begin their Final Four outing with a crunch game against Gboko City Chiefs on Friday, 21st November, followed by a clash with Nigeria Customs on Saturday, 22nd November, before taking on Lagos Legends on the final day of action on Sunday, 23rd November.
All games will be played at the Basketball Stadium, #59 Niger Street, Port Harcourt Township.
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