Nigeria’s men’s basketball team, D’Tigers are heading to the Olympic Games next week with favourable betting odds in their favour, following historic victories over USA and Argentina in back-to-back build-up games.
Megasportsarena.com reports that, although Mike Brown’s side lost their third preparation match to Australia, pundits are still ready to tip to ruffle a feather or two in Tokyo, where they will try to rewrite history.
The last time D’Tigers got to the Olympics, they failed to shine at London 2012 in England, but their mission to The Land of The Rising Sun later this month appears to be spelt out for glory.
That much has been cited in a preview by aclsports.com, which noted that D’Tigers can still hold their heads high, despite Wednesday morning’s loss to Australia, while Complete Sports newspaper rolled out all odds going in favour of the squad ahead of the Games.
Complete Sports noted: “Sports betting organisations the world over have reacted to Nigeria’s D’Tigers’ victories over the United States and Argentina by improving the odds of the Nigerian team’s chances of winning gold in the basketball event of the Tokyo Olympics.
“Prior to last weekend’s shock 90-87 win over the world’s top basketball team, (D’Tigers) were pegged at 151.00 (150/1) across most major sports betting platforms when it came to their chances of clinching gold at the Tokyo Olympics.
“After the Mike Brown-tutored D’Tigers got the better of Team USA in the pre-Olympic Games tune-up match, the odds improved significantly to 51.00 (50/1) across most of the world’s major sports betting platforms.
“Nigeria’s 51.00 odds of winning gold in Tokyo was only better than those of Germany (66.00), Czech Republic (86.00), Japan (101.00) and Iran (101.00).”
Similarly, the report by aclsports stated in part: “Nigeria’s Men Basketball team, D’Tigers have taken the basketball world by storm in the last 72 hours after defeating the USA and Argentina before losing to Australia in a pre-Olympic exhibition game in Las Vegas.
“Despite the loss to Australia in the early hours of Wednesday morning, it has been an impressive preparation for D’Tigers ahead of the Olympic Games. Against the USA, D’Tigers won 90-87 in a keenly contested game which saw the world no.1 field their strongest line up against world no.22.
“Prior to that game, the USA had only lost two of their previous 56 exhibition games. Nigeria’s D’Tigers then followed up the performance with another impressive win over the no.4 ranked team in the world, Argentina as the team got more global basketball heads talking for the second time in a matter of days.
“Although going by the stats it wasn’t a very clinical performance from D’Tigers in terms of shooting especially from behind the arc but the team did just enough in and around the paint to get a 94-71 win over the Argentines.
“Early Wednesday morning it was time for the final pre-Olympic warm-up game against world no.3, Australia who have also been drawn alongside D’Tigers at the Olympics. Just like against the Argentines, Nigeria failed to make most of the shots from behind the arc and also in the paint count as the Aussies won by a 39 point margin (69-108).
“There was also lots of turnovers from the Nigerian team as the Aussies defended brilliantly while also moving the ball quickly and converting their shots. D’Tigers will now look forward to the Olympics where they play Australia, Italy and Germany in the group stage as Coach Mike Brown is set to release his final roster.”
