Basketball: Kano Pillars win Zone 3 Championship, dominate awards

Kano Pillars of Nigeria retained the FIBA Africa Champions Cup (ACC) 2016 Zone 3 Qualifiers.

The team led by Sani Ahmed kept a clean sheet as they rolled over ASPAC of Benin in the last game of the qualification in Lome, Togo.

Ahmed insisted that they played every game as if their lives were on the line because they elected to avoid possible surprises.

”There are no easy opponents when it comes to the game of basketball,” Ahmed said. “Every team that was here for the qualifiers came for a purpose. Ours is to qualify the Cairo showdown. Our job was to be ready at all time for any opposition,” he offered.

Meanwhile, Nigeria Customs will be making their first-ever appearance in the continental flagship club tournament as they finished second following a 4- 1 mark.

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On the other hand, Elan Sportif of the Republic of Benin finished in 3rd-place while hosts Modele, ASPAC of Benin and AS NIGELEC of Niger finished fourth, fifth and sixth.

In the meantime, Kano Pillars point guard Abubakar Usman dominated the individual awards. swept the awards claiming the lead in assists (19), best in 3 points shots (21), the highest scorer with 110 points as well as emerging the

As well as leading all players with 19 assists, the 30-year-old converted the most three-point attempts (21), he also scored more points than any other player (110) and was named the ACC Zone 3 2016 Most Valuable Player.

Souleymane Chabi of Elan Sportif became the dominant force in the paint to lead all players in blocks, while Yacoubou Arnold of ASPAC dominated the boards with a total of 54 rebounds.

Usman also made it to the All-Tournament team alongside Apegbeyi Solomon (Customs), Souleymane Chabi (Elan Sportif) and Ibrahim Yusuf (Kano Pillars).

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