Nigeria’s Tigers male Basketball team will on Wednesday at 7pm face Afro Basketball five times champions, Lions of Senegal in the 2nd quarterfinals of the ongoing tournament in Luanda, Angola.

Senegal defeated South Sudan 78-65 in the playoffs on Monday to meet Nigeria that qualified directly for the quarterfinal for being tops in group B.

Mali would have met Ivory Coast in the 1st quarterfinals at 4pm on Wednesday but today Tuesday, Cape Verde will face defending champions Tunisia to determine who plays the 3rd quarterfinals against Angola at 4pm on Thursday while also today Lions of Cameroon will face Democratic Republic of Congo in another playoff to determine who faces Egypt at 7pm on Thursday in the 4th quarterfinals.

Angola is the all-time champions of Afrobasket male tournament having won it a record 11 times. She was the first country to win the title four times back to back 1989 to 1997 but broke her own record to win another 6 times back to back 2001 to 2011. Her years of victory were 1989; 1992; 1993; 1995; 1997; 2001; 2003; 2005; 2007; 2009; 2011 and 2013.

Egypt and Senegal won five times each. Egypt won in 1962; 1964; 1970; 1975 and 1983. Senegal won in 1970; 1972; 1978; 1980 and 1999. Morocco won once in 1965. Central African Republic won twice in 1974; 1987. Ivory Coast won twice in 1981 and 1985. Nigeria only won in 2015 while defending champions Tunisia won thrice in 2011; 2017 and 2021. 

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.