By
Eniola Olatunji 

Nigeria's D’Tigers on Sunday night in Luanda, Angola caged the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon 99-90 baskets to stroll majestically into the quarterfinals of the FIBA AFROBASKET 2025 men's championship.

Nigeria won the 1st quarter 28-27 while sizing up the Lions; showed colour taking the 2nd quarter 32-16, maintained leadership in 3rd quarter with 26-12 and showed big brother stuff allowing Cameroon to win the 4th quarter 37-15. There were several stoppages and timeout shouts from the Cameroonians in the 3rd and 4th quarters.

Individually the Lions had more points, with Fabien Ateba who got 19 points; Oluwe Misi had 18 points and Jeremiah Hill scored 16 points compared to Josh Okogie who had 16 points and Stan Okoye who got 15 points to his name.

Nigeria zoomed straight into the quarterfinals leading group B with accumulative 6 points from 265 -217 baskets on a difference of +48; Cameroon came 2nd with accumulative points of 5 points from 258-243 baskets on a difference of +15; Tunisia was 3rd with a cumulative 4 points from 212-233 baskets on a difference of -21 while Madagascar was ousted with a cumulative 3 points from 196-238 baskets on a difference of -42.

The Refs were Mosaye Arnold (RSA); Woolcock Ruben (Aus) and Eiuba Claudio (Ang).

Nigeria’s D’Tigers had defeated Madagascar 77-59 in the first game and beaten Tunisia 87-66 in the second game. The Indomitable Lions of Cameroon had outplayed defending champions Tunisia in the first game of the group before beating Madagascar 80-77 in the second game.

The two countries met thrice all at FIBA Afro games on 13th August 2009 Nigeria lost to Cameroon 80-84 at the quarterfinals; on 25th August 2013 at the preliminary round, Nigeria prevailed 91-84 points while on 14th September 2017 also at the quarterfinal, Nigeria won 106 -91 baskets.

Cameroon ranked 63 in the world and coached by 40 year old 6ft 9ins tall Alfred Aboya has never been to the FIBA world cup neither has she been to the Olympics but made 10 appearances at Afro final tournaments never winning the title.

Cameroon looked like a quarterfinal specialist with three reaches there in 2011, 2013 and 2017 but she won the Silver once in 2007 also placing 4th twice in 1972 and 2009.

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.

Earlier on Sunday evening, Tunisian won their first match beating Madagascar 81-60 points in same group B game.

Nigeria will meet the winner of the Senegal vs South Sudan playoff in the quarterfinals on 18th August; Egypt will play the winner of the playoff match between Cameroon and 3rd placed team in group A in the quarterfinals while hosts Angola will meet the winner of the Tunisia vs runners up in group A also in the quarterfinals. All playoff matches are scheduled for 18th August. 

The quarterfinal matches will be played on 20th and 21st August; the semifinals will be decided on 23rd August; the battle for Bronze is on 24th August at 4pm while the grand finale in Luanda, Angola is same 24th August at 7pm.