Lagos – Nigeria’s senior men’s basketball team D’Tigers on Thursday defeated Gabon, 88-64 to qualify for the semi=finals of the ongoing 2015 Afrobasket Nations Cup Basketball tournament holding in Tunisia.
D’Tigers went into an early lead, outscoring Gabon, 23-11 in the first quarter and putting the game beyond their opponents reach, scoring 26-14 in the second quarter.
Leading Gabon 49-25 into the third quarter, D’Tigers exerted more pressures to break the challenge from the Gabonese, recording 23-9 , taking the margin to all time 72-34.
The Gabonese team, however, fought back in the final quarter after pilling up several three points shots to win the quarter at 30-16 but not enough points to challenge D’Tigers eventual victory.
Nigeria’s brilliant performance did not go unnoticed by their well-coordinated team efforts as, Alfarouq Aminu, led the score chart with 17 points while his younger brother, Alade recorded 10 rebounds.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) gathered that the victory puts Nigeria in position to qualify for the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics if they beat their next opponents, Senegal or Algeria.
Femi Adefeso, a Nigerian sports journalists, who accompanied the team to the tournament told NAN in an interview that Nigeria stood a good chance to defeat their next opponent, following their quality play through good team coordination.
“D’Tgers are ranked high to win the championship; they’ve played well so far, and are getting better with every game played, regardless of their group game loss to hosts, Tunisia.
“They also have a chance to rest well ahead of their semi-final clash, which bookmakers expect to once more meet with the Senegalese team that had defeated D’Tigers in the 2013 edition.
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“A victory in the semi-final takes us to the Rio Olympics and a chance to finally win the championship trophy that had eluded the country since inception of the Nations Cup,” stressed Adefeso.
Afolabi Oni, another journalist on the entourage, said that victory would be important to Nigeria at this point; I congratulate he team so far, urging on the team to do well in their semi-final match.
“It’s a good result, the team showed their their determination to target the trophy but you need to rise up to the occasion when facing big teams in the crucial semi-final match,’’ Oni said. (NAN)