Nigeria’s men’s basketball national team, D’Tigers will have to battle their way through a play-off in order to advance at this year’s African championship in Kigali, Rwanda, following their loss to Ivory Coast, megasportsarena.com reports.
Against all expectations and forecast, D’Tigers failed to make it three wins out of three games on Sunday afternoon, as they fell 68-77 to the Ivorians in their final group game of the ongoing 2021 Afrobasket.
In spite of D’Tigers’ coach, Mike Brown naming an unchanged starting line-up from the first two games they won against Mali and Kenya, Nigeria lost by nine-points’ margin, having started the game on the back foot.
The 2015 Champions were poor in defence and attack, as they put up a below par performance on the day, with three players recording double figures for the team that were poor with their shooting.
They also had a slow start to the game losing the first quarter by 9 points (11-20) and, though they bounced back to take the second quarter 23-19, D’Tigers lost the third and fourth quarters by two points each as Cote D’Ivoire emerged group winners.
Overall, D’Tigers enacted less than 30% (8/27) accuracy from behind the arc, 40% (4/10) from the free throw line, 50% on two point shots (20/40) and about 42% (28/67) field goals in general, but double figures still went to Emelogu (13 points), Utomi (12) and Edogi (10).
By virtue of this win, Ivory Coast a straight ticket to play in the quarter-finals, while D’Tigers will play a qualifying game for a spot in the last eight – having won their first two games against Mali and Kenya.
