D’Tigers, Nigeria‘s senior men’s national basketball team, were drawn alongside Kenya, Mali and Cote d’Ivoire in Group C of the 2021 Afrobasket FIBA scheduled for Rwanda.
The Nigeria News Agency (NAN) reports that the tournament will be held from August 24 to September 5.
Nigeria, 2015 champions and one of the title contenders, should have no trouble qualifying for the knockout phase of the competition.
Côte d’Ivoire is ranked 50, while Mali is 77th, although Kenya who managed a surprise against Angola to qualify after 28 years of waiting can be a handful.
D’Tigers, who is linked with the Tokyo Olympics, is hoping to go further than their 2017 feat of winning the silver medal.
The team that lost to host Tunisia has since evolved into number one in Africa and number 22 in the world.
In 2019, they were the first country in the world to qualify for the FIBA World Cup.
Despite narrowly missing the quarter-finals, D’Tigers were able to secure their ticket to the Olympics as Africa’s top-ranked team at the tournament.
(NAN)
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