The Nigeria national basketball team, D’Tigers kicked off their 2015 FIBA Afrobasket Championship by thumping the Central African Republic 88-63.
Despite losing big centre Ike Diogu to a knee injury, D’Tigers were dominant on the boards playing above the rim and effectively boxing the Central Africans out.
The team was led in scoring by Al-Farouq Aminu and Olaseni Lawal, who shared 29 points between them. Lawal also got 14 rebounds with his 14 points.
Al-Farouq, playing with his brother, Alade was unstoppable in the inside while Oguchi bombed away with silky three pointers from the outside. Yet the first quarter ended 16-12 with D’Tigers only being up by 4.
In the second quarter, the CAR were very aggressive and went ahead 29-27 at one point but after back to back threes Nigeria again proved her mettle and ended the 2nd quarter up 49-35.
The third quarter ended with the Nigerians extending their advantage by one point with CAR’s Destin Damoucha blowing up and doing all he could to get his team back into the game while being cheered on by the very vocal fans from central Africa.
In the fourth quarter, the Nigerian coach William Voigt inserted both Ogide and Oyedeji off the bench and they got 12 and six points respectively to help their team over the line.
Their next match is against Uganda on Friday though injured forward, Ike Diogu is not expected to have made a full recovery by then. Nigeria seems poised to claim her first title after placing second on three occasions in the past.
Source: SuperSport
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