KNUST wins Republic Hall basketball competition

Squad, a Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) basketball team at the weekend beat Kumasi-based Rox, 20-18 in the final match to win the fifth Republic Hall three-on-three basketball competition at the Republic Hall Court in Kumasi.

The four-day competition which formed part of activities marking the 42nd Republic Hall week celebrations and sponsored by Cowbell Milk, saw Nigerian studded squad breaking on 18-18 tie with free-throws by Zebulon Abule to take 800,000 cedis as the first prize and Rox settling for 600,000 cedis as the second prize.

In the third place match, Gunners of KNUST made amends in their earlier loss to Rox at the semi-finals by coming back strongly from a 9-18 defeat to beat Jet of KNUST 21-19 and took home 400,000 cedis as the third prize.

The three-pointer shoot-outs event saw Umeadi Ikem of Squad scoring eight points by throwing 25 balls in five racks to take 300,000 cedis as the first prize. Two hundred thousand cedis went to James Owusu as the second prize after scoring seven points while Zebulon Abule fetched 100,000 cedis as the third prize with six points.
In the slam dunk event, Ismael Brown of KNUST scored 238 points to win 300,000 cedis as the first prize while Teddy Sunu-Nukpeh of KNUST took home 200,000 cedis and Zebulon Abule taking 100,000 cedis for finishing as the second and third runners-up with 227 and 210 points respectively.
The annual competition which started in 1998 had three awards being introduced for the first time by the sponsors to motivate participants and whip up enthusiasm in basketball among the youth in the Ashanti region.
Consequently, Babs Rodman Saeed of Rox was voted the most disciplined and tolerable player of the competition while James Owusu and Umeadi Ikem were voted as the most exciting player and most valuable player respectively.
Mr Emmanuel Nutakor, chairman of the Republic Hall Sports Committee, in a closing address, commended Cowbell Company for introducing the other awards, which he said, would help attract more participants to the competition.