Photo: D’Tigers in action at the Olympics
Nigeria’s men basketball team, D’Tigers, has crashed out of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Basketball event after losing 80 to 71 to Italy, in their final group game on Saturday.
The African champions defeat to the Italians is a huge blow to their Japan Olympic campaign, having lost their first two group games to Australia and Germany.
The team coached by veteran Mike Brown needed to beat Italy with at least nine points and hoped that Australia beat Germany to stand a chance of qualifying for the quarter-finals.
In the Saturday match proceedings, the Italians took the first quarter 29-22 but D’Tigers fought back to make the scores 40-39 at half time.
D’Tigers led in the 3rd quarter 61 – 64 to rekindle hope of a comeback but couldn’t hold on to the lead.
D’Tigers were ranked 4th team in the Olympics prior to their arrival and raised the hope of Nigerians after defeating USA and Argentina in exhibition games in Los Angeles preparatory to the tournament.
They are however dumbed out of the tournament contrary to expectations and are now left to lick the brutal bruises of their agonizing three straight defeats, while they go back to the drawing board to prepare for the next edition.