Nigeria’s men’s basketball national team, D’Tigers will this Saturday battle hosts Rwanda in their second match at the ongoing qualifiers for the 2021 African Basketball Championship, where they will round-off their campaign with a clash against Mail on Sunday, megasportsarena.com reports.
Saturday’s game in Kigali will come just two days after D’Tigers commenced their 2021 FIBA Afrobasket qualifiers campaign with victory over South Sudan on Thursday morning, with the Nigerians emerging tops 76-56 in a 20 point game at the end of the fourth quarter.
American tactician, Mike Brown who made his debut as D’Tigers coach and picked a starting five of Ike Diogu, Ike Ireogbu, Obi Emegano, Micheal Gbinije and Keith Omoerah, but his side had a slow start, until they got into their groove with a 17 point lead at half time.
The lead was, however, cut to 12 points by a rejuvenated South Sudanese team in the third quarter and further to eight points midway into the fourth before the 2015 Afrobasket champions picked up the pace again.
Top performers for D’Tigers were Ireogbu, who finished the game with 13 points, 7 rebounds, a game high 8 assists and 1 steal; Caleb Agada had a game high 16 points; while the likes of Diogu (11 points), Omoerah (10 points) and Emegano (10 points) all finished with double digit points.
The matches at Kigali Arena come just a week after D’Tigers’ head coach released his final 12-man roster for the competition, for which the players arrived on Sunday and Monday, and had their first training session on Tuesday.
Diogu, who captained the team to Olympic Games’ qualification at the FIBA World Cup in China last year, leads the roster again, while Ben Uzoh, Ike Iroegbu and Obi Emegano also retain their places on the 12-player squad list.
Also listed are Caleb Agada, Keith Omoerah, Ibe Agu, Emmanuel Omogbo, Michael Gbinije, Amanze Egezeke, Jordan Ogundiran and Chima Moneke; but the impending commencement of action in USA’s National Basketball Association (NBA) prevented Jordan Nwora, Al-Farouq Aminu, Chimeze Metu, Josh Okogie and Nnamdi Vincent from participating in the qualifiers.
