South Korea 66, Nigeria 108: Matters Arising -By Sa’ad Abubakar Zongre

Contrary to general assumption among Nigerian Basketball fans, Tunisia’s defeat to Puerto Rico by 3 points margin (64-67) and Nigeria’s D’Tigress merciless spanking of South Korea by a whopping 42 points margin (108-66) yesterday at the ongoing Federation of International Basketball Association (FIBA) Word Cup in China, does not, automatically, qualified D’Tigress to next year’s (2020) Tokyo Olympics in Japan as the best African team in the World Cup until the conclusion of the upcoming two rounds of classification matches.

Rather, the outcomes of yesterday’s matches had given D’Tigress a strong chance to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics because the team is currently ahead of all the other African teams participating in the tournament with a cumulative 4 points gained in 3 matches and +24 scored points difference having scored a total of 266 and conceded 242 points with both Cote d’voire and Senegal on cumulative 3 point (1 less than Nigeria) gained in 3 matches respectively, while Tunisia and Angola have cumulative 4 points (the same with Nigeria) gained in equal number of matches but with minus or negative points difference.

Having won their second group match, Tunisia could have amassed a cumulative total of 5 points in 3 matches with a win over Puerto Rico which could have qualified them to the quarter finals or place them among the top 8 which Nigeria could have never match even with the resounding victory against South Korea yesterday having lost the earlier two matches.

As things stand, D’Tigress needs to win their upcoming two rounds of classification matches against fellow Africans-Cote d’ivoire tomorrow and host China next Sunday convincingly or with very good scores that hopefully, both Tunisia and Angola could not match in their own respective classification matches to emerge as the best African team in the World Cup, thereby earning automatic qualification to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
It is unfortunate that Nigera’s coach, Alex Nwora slightly fumbled in his selection/players rotation and tactics against both Russia and Argentina which led to those undeserved defeats. Otherwise, Nigeria have no business loosing to them based on the evidence of play against South Korea yesterday where D’Tigress recorded the biggest score (108-66) and margin of victory (42) in the entire group which even Russia and Argentina never came close to recording against the same South Korean side in their previous matches.

Zongre wrote from Yerima Bappa Sanda Road, Turaki “A” Ward, Jalingo