The 5th edition of the Ibadan Basketball Championships opened on Friday with only two female teams, falling short of the organisers’ expectations.

The two teams are the Rising Stars Angels and the Showtime Angels.

The male teams, six of them, are the University of Ibadan (UI), The Polytechnic, Ibadan; Rising Stars; Ollysan; Embrace; and Yellow Tiger.

The UI coach, Momoh Zika, said the institution’s female team could not participate because the school was currently on break.

Mr Zika said it was easier to recall the boys from their homes to participate in the two-day competition billed end on Saturday.

He said, “No parent is ready to release his or her female child to participate in any competition. Parents prefer to have their girls under their care, and this we can’t contend with.”

The President of the Nigeria Basketball Referee Council, Tunde Popoola, however, attributed the low turnout of female teams to a lack of commitment to the sport.

According to Mr Popoola, only a few girls are fully committed and willing to go the extra mile in basketball.

“If the parents of a male child do not want to release him, the child has a way of making his parents see reasons to attend, and, eventually, they will give in to his request. However, parents of the girls are not interested because they are scared to release their girls for fear of molestation,” he said.

The annual competition is being sponsored by former Oyo State basketballers in the diaspora, such as Rashidat Sadiq, Shoola Durojaiye, and others.

The sponsors see it as a way of giving back to society by fostering community development through sports.

The winner and the second team, in both the male and female categories, will receive N300,000 and N200,000, respectively.

In some of the matches played on Friday, The Polytechnic Ibadan lost to Rising Stars 38-58; Embrace defeated Ollysan 33-24, while Yellow Tiger beat Embrace 40-30. 

(NAN)