D’Tigers Battle Britain

Nigeria’s senior national basketball team, D’Tigers will confront Great Britain later today in far away Houston, Texas, United States of America,USA.

The match is in continuation of their build up for Olympic basketball qualifiers that will dunk-off on 2-8 July, 2012.

The Ayo Bakare-tutored side rounded-up their training tour of China on Tuesday with three wins over Foshan Long Lions basketball club of China, winning by 84-54, 74-47 and 110-67 points.

D’Tigers, who have the task of surpassing one of  the power-houses in world basketball, Lithuania and hosts, Venezuela, in group-B of the Olympic qualifier, went on to defeat Fujian Quanzhou Bank basketball club and Shanxi Zhongyu basketball club, both of China, by 84-56 and 94-80 points respectively, in their last matches played in China.

The Nigerian side will depart USA to honour a 4-nation tourney from 25-30 June, in Brazil where they will play against Greece, Brazil and New Zealand before heading for Caracas.

The D’Tigers team included, Michael Ohiero of Royal Hoopers, Stanley Gumut of Customs and Abubakar Usman of Kano Pillars and two coaches, Ayo Bakare as Head Coach and Sani Ahmed as his Assistant left Nigeria for China penultimate Wednesday  and was joined by two assistant coaches (Tim Shea and Dominic Okon) and eight foreign-based professionals led by team captain Olumide Oyedeji.

—Bamidele Olowosagba