Duro Ikhazuagbe 

After a dismal start that saw Nigeria defeated back-to-back by Tunisia and Guinea, D’Tigers resurrected their FIBA Basketball World Cup 2027 African Qualifiers First Round Playoff with a 75-69 defeat of Rwanda on Sunday night in Rades, Tunisia.

It was however not an easy win for D’Tigers as they had to go into Overtime after scores stood at 61-61 at the end of the fourth quarter. 

With this victory, Nigeria can still qualify for the World Cup depending on how D’Tigers handle their 3rd, 4th and 5th windows of the Qualifiers in June, August, 2026 and February 2027 respectively.

Yesterday, D’Tigers began their third Group C game with Rwanda sluggishly, losing the first quarter 12-21. They however woke up to take the second and third quarters 13-6 and 20-9 after which they took off feet from the pedal and allowed Rwanda to win the final fourth quarter by as much as nine points (16-25).

Coach Abdulrahman Mohamed and his wards however did a soul- searching and dug deep into their bag of tricks to conjure 14 points in the Overtime as against the only five that the Rwandese could only muster.

Basketball insiders however confided in THISDAY at the weekend that the failure of D’Tigers in the first two games was expected following the poor preparations of the team ahead of the 2027 World Cup qualifiers.

It was learnt that the squad Coach Abdulrahman Mohamed took to the tournament only camped for two days  before heading to Tunisia.

Apart from the poor preparations, it was also learnt that some of the players in the squad were not of the quality known of the D’Tigers, a situation attributed to poor judgement of the coaches in picking the team.