FIBA Basketball

Basketball dominates Nigerian Sports Awards

LAGOS - Basketball emerged as the biggest winner at the Nigerian Sports Award ceremony held over the weekend in Lagos.

Thanks to an impressive campaign at FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup 2018 last September in Tenerife, Spain, where the African champions established a milestone by becoming the continent's first nation to reach the competitions' Quarter Final, Nigeria claimed three national sports award.

As well as being voted the best Nigerian team of 2018, the D'Tigresses saw their all-around star Evelyn Akhator winning not one, but two individual awards.

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Picking up the Basketball player of the year and Sportswoman of the year 2018 @ngrsportsaward was truly amazing for me. Where I am today is down to my role model, my mum who always gave me confidence to go out and conquer. I know she is looking down on me with joy. Thank you to all my supporters who voted for me. #queeneve #ea13 #nigeriansportsawards #trysports #Trybasketball #Bethemovement

A post shared by Evelyn Akhator 🇳🇬🏀 (@evelynakhator13) on Nov 17, 2018 at 11:46am PST

While Aruna Quadri was voted as the Sportsman of the Year ahead of contenders Ike Diogu (basketball) and Ahmed Musa, who stopped the Footballer of the Year award, Akhator was voted as the Sports Woman of the Year before claiming the Basketball Player of the Year.

The 23-year-old power forward currently plays for Besiktas in Turkish topflight.

Evelyn Akhator averaged team-highs 12.6 points and nine rebounds per game at Spain 2018

According to the Nigerian Sports Award website, this “year’s award recorded the highest number of participants from the general public as over 7.5 million individuals voted across all sports categories.”

FIBA