By

Eniola Olatunji 

Nigeria's D’Tigers male basketball team on Wednesday night in Luanda, Angola bowed to the superior fire powers of five times champions, Lions of Senegal in the 2nd quarterfinal of the AFROBASKET tournament.

Nigeria won the 1st quarter 24-23; slumped very badly in the 2nd quarter 18-30 before half time break for 42-53 which was an indicator to the loss of the game.

Nigeria lost the 3rd quarter 13-23 but every effort to redeem the game in the 4th quarter woefully failed as the score board read 20-15 in favour of Nigeria by which final scores stood at Nigeria 75 and Senegal 91. Senegal is the winner!

Senegal played better individual game with her three top scorers Branon Badio scoring 32 points; Jean Boissy - 21 and Moustapha Diop - 14 whereas Ike Nwanu made 15 points for Nigeria; star boy Stan Okoye scored 14 while Caleb Agada and Martins Igbanu scored 12 points each.

Thus Senegal will meet Mali in the 1st semifinal on 23rd August. Two other Quarterfinal matches will be decided tomorrow between all time Champs, Angola that won the title 11 times and Cape Verde while the other Quarterfinal game will be between the Pharaohs of Egypt and Lions of Cameroon.

Earlier in the evening, Mali slammed Ivory Coast 102-96. Mali won the 1st quarter 28-27; lost the 2nd quarter  14-27; won the 3rd quarter 29-15 but lost the 4th quarter 19-21.

To get to the quarterfinals Senegal beat Uganda 88-53; was slammed by Egypt 77-91 and beat Mali 80-70 in their group matches before the play off against South Sudan which was won 78-65.

Nigeria topped group B clearing Madagascar 77-59; beat defending champions Tunisia 87-66 and then clipped the Lions of Cameroon in a controversial score line of 99-90 instead of 101-92 reported by many media houses including Patmos Media Line which FIBA Afrobasket needs to clarify to straighten the record.

Nigeria and Senegal met 7 times with Nigeria winning 5 times. On 5th August 2001 at the preliminary rounds Nigeria won 80-65; on 14th August 2009 at the semifinal of FIBA Africa Nigeria won 76-58; on 28th August 2013 in another semifinal encounter Senegal narrowly took it 64-63; on 29th August 2015 yet another Afro semifinal Nigeria had a retaliatory win 88-79; on 18th September 2017 Nigeria again won Afro semifinal 76-71; at a world cup qualifier of 16th September 2018 Nigeria squarely out dunked Senegal 89-61; in another world cup qualifier of 24th February 2019 Senegal won 84-63 while the last time the two teams met which was an Olympic Games qualifier of 14th August  2023 Senegal again won   93-87.

Senegal ranked 47 in the world appeared at the Olympics three times without a medal; went to FIBA world cup five times without a medal; appeared at AFROBASKET 29 times winning Gold 5 times; Silver 6 times in 1970; 1974; 1975; 1992; 1995 and 2005 as well as winning the Bronze 6 times in 1983; 1989; 1993; 2013; 2017 and 2021. She won All African Games in 1978; picked the Silver thrice in 1965; 1987 and 1991 placing 4th in 1973 in Lagos.

D’Tigers of Nigeria coached by Mohammed Abdurrahman is ranked 42 in the world. Nigeria made 19 appearances at Afro basketball final tournament winning it once in 2015. She got Silver medal 4 times in 1997, 1999, 2003 and 2017 while bagging the Bronze 3 times in 1995, 2005 and 2011. 

She appeared at the African Games 8 times winning Gold in 2011 and 5 times Bronze winners in 1995, 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2015. She was 4th at the 2006 Commonwealth Games. She went to the Olympic Games 3 times coming without a medal and FIBA world cup 3 times without a medal.

Nigeria is the only African team to have beaten the mighty USA team to qualify for the Summer Olympics in 2012 where she beat elite teams like Lithuania and Greece.

The partial final placings has been released by FIBA Afrobasket showing Guinea in the 9th position after winning 2 games in 4 matches; South Sudan is 10th; DR Congo is 11th; ousted defending champions, Tunisia is 12th; Rwanda is 13th; Madagascar is 14th; Uganda is 15th while Libya rocks the 16th position.