D’TIGERS coach, Mike Brown, says he hopes their loss to Ivory Coast will help improve the performance of his players when they play Uganda in one of the 2021 Afrobasket quarter-final qualifying matches on Tuesday (today) at the Kigali Arena in Rwanda.
Nigeria lost 77-68 to Les Éléphants on Sunday to lose out on Group C’s automatic ticket to the quarter-final. The result means they will face Uganda and only a win will guarantee them a spot in the quarter-final as they hope to claim their second Afrobasket crown in Kigali.
Uganda lost their opening group game 93-55 to Senegal before narrowly losing 88-86 to South Sudan in their final game, but bounced back to beat Cameroon 80-66.
Speaking ahead of the match, Brown says he hopes the experience of losing to Ivory Coast will spur them to do better against Uganda.
“To go through that experience (of losing to Ivory Coast) as a group was really good for us. Hopefully, it will help us in the next game and further if we win the next game,” he told the Nigeria Basketball Federation media.
“I am looking forward to the challenge and I think the guys are too.
“We have to play harder for longer stretches than how we did against Ivory Coast and we have to play together,” Brown said.
Should D’Tigers get a win against Uganda, they’ll face Cape Verde in the quarter-finals.
Senegal, Cape Verde, Tunisia and Ivory Coast have picked automatic tickets to the quarter-finals, while Cameroon, Mali, DR Congo and Central African Republic all crashed out from the group stage.
In the first quarter-final qualifying match played on Monday, Angola beat Egypt 70-62 to book a date with tournament favourites Senegal on Wednesday.
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