Nigeria’s senior men’s basketball team, D’Tigers hope of winning the Afrobasket Championship got off on good note Wednesday as the Coach Mike Brown tutored side beat Mali 81-73 in their opening match of the ongoing championship in Kigali, Rwanda.
D’Tigers who represented Nigeria at the Tokyo Olympics paraded none of their NBA stars were full of upcoming youngsters and was led by Stephen Domingo of Lake Land Magic in the US. The D’Tigers won the first quarters by 28-12 points.
D’Tigers were able to cling to a 44-43points lead heading into halftime.
Third quarter saw the Mike Brown inspired side shooting themselves to a 71-53pts lead as they did enough to hold off the marauding Malians in the fourth quarter to close out the game.
The Malian team however rallied back in the second quarter to win it at 31-16, to go into half time just a point behind at 43-44.
On resumption of the third quarter, D’Tigers upped their game to win 27-10 for a 71-53 lead.
The Malians again showed they were no push-overs, coming strong in the fourth quarter to win it 20-10.
But it was a little too late for them as the D’Tigers won the highly entertaining encounter 81-73.
Speaking after the game, Brown praised his lads for holding their heads above the waters in the first game against a typical physical African team.
He said, “We have to take care of the ball better, we can’t foul. Teams are going to get beat, teams are going to get upset. What you do is just learn from it and hopefully grow from it.”
Nigeria will face Kenya in their next game on Friday
D’Tigers have won the Afrobasket championship once in 2015.
