Reigning champions Rivers Hoopers emerged victorious from an intense battle against Gboko City Chiefs by earning a pulsating 93-92 victory in overtime to ensure their unbeaten run in the 2025 Nigeria Premier Basketball League (NPBL) season remained intact.
After suffering their first defeat of the 2025 NPBL Final Eight Playoffs and having never won a game against the defending champions, Gboko City Chiefs were out to prove a point and raced into a thirteen-point lead at 29-16 to end the first quarter.
The KingsMen regrouped and came back firing in the second quarter, reducing the deficit to five points, with the score at 44-39 in favour of Gboko City Chiefs.
The game continued to swing back and forth, with the lead exchanging hands multiple times in the third and fourth quarters.
Then just as Gboko City Chiefs thought they had won it at the death with the score at 80-77, vice captain Buchi Nwaiwu found Mustapha Oyebanji with a long ball and 2.2 seconds left. Mustapha then fired a game-tying shot from beyond the arc to drag the game into overtime.
The contest was fierce in overtime, but in the end, the KingsMen prevailed 93-92.
Mustapha Oyebanji and Isaiah Williams were joint top scorers in the game with twenty-two (22) points apiece, while Buchi dropped ten (10) points, with Peter Olisemeka recording a double-double of eighteen (18) points and twelve (12) rebounds in a performance that was both thrilling and breathtaking for the crowd but uninspiring for Coach Ogoh Odaudu.
“I’ll give them a fifty or a sixty per cent [rating]. We just didn’t play the way we were supposed to play. There were many things we did not do right. If we had played half the basketball that we know how to play, this game would have been over in regulation time,” he insisted.
The 2024 Basketball Africa League (BAL) coach of the season admitted to being concerned about his team’s slow start to games, as has been the case against Kano Pillars and Nigeria Customs in previous games.
“Anybody that saw that game in the first quarter today will think that it was going to be a blowout game. But point by point, we clawed our way back into the game and eventually took the game. We have to address that issue,” he stated.
The results from Gameday Four mean that there are now only two teams who are yet to taste defeat at the Final Eight Playoffs so far: Rivers Hoopers and Lagos Legends.
Both teams will go up against themselves by 5pm on Friday, 31st October, 2025, as part of the Gameday Five schedule, and Odaudu expects a better showing from his players.
“Another tough team. But I do not think it’s going to be like this. We cannot have two awful days consecutively. So, I’m thinking that tomorrow, we’re going to have a better outing. I don’t think any of the players will come on the court to make the same kind of mistakes. It’s going to be a high-intensity game.” he said
Day 5 – Friday, 31st October
11:00am: Kano Pillars vs Hoops & Read
1:00pm: Nile University vs Gboko City Chiefs
3:00pm: Kwara Falcons vs Nigeria Customs
5:00pm: Lagos Legends vs Rivers Hoopers
