A member of Nigeria’s men’s basketball national team, Gabe Vincent has admitted how thrilled he was being part of the squad that stole a historic win over United States of America, megasportsarena.com reports.
Baring his mind in reaction to the stunning 90-87 win that was enacted on American soil, Vincent, who plays for Miami Heat in USA’s National Basketball Association (NBA) admitted it was a shock victory to pull off.
D’Tigers will face Australia, Germany, and Italy in Group B at the Tokyo Olympics, which is set to begin 23 July in the Japanese capital, and the game offered Nigeria’s coach, Mike Brown a huge opportunity to prune his 15-man squad down to 12 players.
It was their first tune-up game for the Tokyo Olympics and no one gave them any chance against the world heavyweight basketball side, yet Vincent led Nigeria in scoring with 21 points, four assists, and two rebounds.
The point guard was a star performer in the encounter, alongside Caleb Agada and forward Precious Achiuwa, who put in a superb defensive effort when he blocked a Kevin Durant dunk attempt in the second quarter.
Agada also had 17 points, three rebounds and two assists while Ike Nwamu finished the game with 13 points, seven rebounds and three assists. Ike Ireogbu also impressed in the encounter scoring 11 points.
On the other hand, the reigning Olympic champions, USA were led by Durant, who scored 17 points, Jayson Tatum got 15, Damian Lillard hit 14 and their Nigerian-born star from Miami Heat, Bam Adebayo bagged 11 in the outing.
The landmark victory came nine years after the US walloped Nigeria 156-73 at the 2012 London Olympics, thereby marking America’s biggest blowout win in Olympic men’s basketball history, taking advantage of the starry-eyed Tigers and their array of untested hands.
That defeated Nigerian team had one NBA player, Al-Farouq Aminu, but Sunday’s game was quite different, as the Americans struggled for rhythm, Zach LaVine missed a pair of free throws Durant fought back with seven straight points for the United States, but Nigeria got a three-point lead with Nnamdi’s two free throws with 13.2 seconds left.
Precious Achiuwa got the rebound for Nigeria, and Iroegbu scored a three with about 1:15 left to put D’Tigers up 88-80, as they ignited a huge upset, with the world’s 22nd-ranked nation by FIBA beating the No. 1-rated team and three-time reigning Olympic gold medalists.
D’Tigers will continue their preparations for the Tokyo games with another game against Argentina on Monday, July 12 in Las Vegas, USA and, with Jahlil Okafor and Jordan Nwora also in the player pool, Nigeria could field the largest contingent of NBA players on a single Olympic roster for any non-American nation in history.
With six NBA players in their arsenal, D’Tigers left USA’s coach, Gregg Popovich stunned, and he declared afterwards: “I thought that the Nigerian team played very physically, did a great job in that regard and knocked down a lot of 3s. Give them credit.
“I’m kind of glad it happened. That loss means nothing if we don’t learn from it, but, it can be the most important thing in this tournament for us to learn lessons from it. I don’t think anyone should act nor would we act [like] that this is the end of the world.”
The game was Nigeria’s first ever win over the No. 1 ranked basketball nation in the world and it came only hours after Brown confidently told the press that D’Tigers are going to the Olympics to win it.
It now looks quite promising, after D’Tigers converted 20 three-point throws from 42 attempts in the game with six of the 20 coming from Vincent, who led the men in green in scoring with 21 points, four assists and two rebounds.
He enthused that D’Tigers now have a solid build-up heading into the Games, as the game was an ignition to the tune-up games arranged by Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) for the team to prepare for the 2020 Olympics where they’ll face Australia, Germany and Italy in Group B.
Achiuwa had perhaps the night’s top defensive play with 1:23 left in the first half, reaching with his left hand to block a Kevin Durant dunk attempt, while Agada had 17 points, three rebounds and two assists in 16 minutes.
Ike Nwamu finished the game with 13 points, seven rebounds and three assists in 18 minutes. Ireogbu also impressed in the encounter scoring 11 points, following which Vincent hailed the impact that Brown has brought into the Nigerian squad.
Vincent said: “Mike’s done a great job with us so far. We’ve had a great camp so far. We had to build a new culture, start from the ground up, new plays, new everything.
“We’ve got a lot of new guys in. It’s different when you’re playing for a country. Right now we’re representing the continent. It means the world to us and I hope we showed it here.
“It’s just all the work we put in, It’s no mistake what happened here. We knew what it was. We’ve all seen them play at the highest level and make huge shots. We knew what came with that and we just had to make plays.”
