OLANREWAJU IBITOYE
Nigerian Basketball team, D’Tigers, have been predicted to have a great show at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, and possibly become the first AfroBasket Team to win an Olympic gold medal in the men’s category.
This prediction is as a result of their recent victories in their warm-up matches against fire-power and reigning Champions USA, blazing outing against Argentina and a humbling defeat to Australia that broke a six-match winning streak.
These victories had a significant boost in the recent FIBA rankings as the team skyrocketed from the twenty-second placed team to the fourth on the log and this is a huge mental boost for the winners of the 2015 FIBA AfroBasket competition.
The Nigerian Basketball Federation (NBBF) had on Monday named the final twelve to represent Nigeria.
NBBF wrote on its official Twitter page, “All is now set for the 2020 Olympic Games as the D’Tigers and D’Tigress coaches have released their final 12-man roster.”
Following the development, Mike Brown’s boys are now fully geared up to dorn and fly the green white green colours high at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
The twelve-man team are Precious Achiuwa, Kezie Okpala, Caleb Agada, Obi Emegano, Chimezie Metu, Nnamdi Vincent, Eze Udoh, Miye Oni, Ike Nwamu, Jahil Okafor, Jordan Nwora and Josh Okogie.
Nigeria begins its campaign against Australia on July 25 at 17:20(GMT +9) and face Germany at Saitama Super Arena on July 28 at10:00 (GMT +9) before playing Italy in their final group game on Saturday July 31 at 13:40 (GMT +9)
D’Tigers, who made their Olympic debut in the London 2012 Games, departed Oakland for Tokyo on Wednesday after camping for a month.