Nigerian Basketball Team and Olympics dreams

Expectedly, Nigeria men's basketball team, D’Tigers will dunk off their qualification campaign for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games with Group A of the FIBA Olympic Pre-Qualifying tournament in August.

D’Tigers will have a date with Senegal, Mali and Uganda in the pre-qualifying tournament that will take place in Lagos from August 12-20, 2023.

Group B has DR Congo, Cameroon, Guinea and Tunisia, with only one African team to progress to the FIBA Olympic Qualifying tournament next year.

D’Tigers have qualified for the last three editions of the Olympic Games 2012 in London, 2016 in Rio De Jainero, and Tokyo 2020, but failed to make it past the preliminary round in those three appearances.

However, for the 2024 Paris qualifying series which starts for D’Tigers in Lagos, Nigeria, FIBA stated that the initial route taken by each of the 40 participating nations to Paris 2024 has been defined.

Countries that missed out in the FIBA Basketball World Cup in 2023 were given a window to compete in the FIBA Olympic Pre-Qualifying Tournaments.

Each FIBA Olympic Pre-Qualifying Tournament’s champion will line up at one of the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments in July, winning a spot in Paris 2024, while the dedicated host nations will hold the FIBA Olympic Pre-Qualifying Tournaments from August 12 to 20.

The FIBA World Men’s Ranking was used to create seeding pots for the tournament draws and the best team will advance to the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments for the following season by crossing Groups A & B, and Groups C & D.

Looking at the Group A pairings, where Nigeria will confront Senegal, Mali and Uganda, only Senegal poses the greatest threat to Nigeria’s qualifications and escaped being paired with either Tunisia or Angola.

Head to head, although Nigeria’s D’Tigers seemingly have upper hand judging from the previous games played, yet, the Senegalese who are third best team in the rankings by FIBA team are not push overs.

Recall that D’Tigers overcame Senegal in final of the 2017 Afro basket in a hard-earned 76-71 win.

The Nigeria’s male Basketball team was stretched, while they have to be on top of their game having won three of the four quarters in the semifinal clash and at the end of the first quarter, D’Tigers established a-15-12 points lead over their opponents.

The second and third quarters were also fiercely contested but the Nigerian men nicked it at 19-17 and 18-16, while Senegal won the final quarter 26-24, it was not enough to deny Nigeria a place in the final.

D’Tigers quality and rank in the world

In 2023, despite missing out on the FIBA World Cup, Nigeria men’s basketball team, D’Tigers, still retained their position as the number one team on the continent and 19th in the world in the latest FIBA World rankings.

At the recently concluded window of the African qualifiers for the World Cup in Luanda, D’Tigers won two games, defeating Guinea and Ivory Coast, before losing the final game to Angola, to lose the qualifying position to Cape Verde.

According to the latest ranking published on FIBA website, D’Tigers is the top-playing basketball team in Africa and 19th in the World with 461.4 points.

For the qualification berth, many will fathom D’Tigers qualification to the 2024 Olympics in Paris, but how they will perform is another story entirely, because the team need to find a balance and try to improve on the last campaigns which have been abysmal.

Accounts at previous Olympics

D’Tigers first ever show at the Olympics was 2012 London Olympics, where the team only won just a game and lost four. The only victory came against Tunisia under the tutelage of ace Coach Ayodele Bakare.

The male basketball team repeated same fate in 2016 when they competed in the 2016 Rio De Jainero Olympics in Brazil coming to the quadrennial showpiece with several injured players and subsequently finished the campaign with only one win against Croatia, a repeat of 2012 London Olympics.

In 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, D’Tigers came as tournament’s favourites having qualified in third consecutive times. The hype on the team was much because it came with seven NBA players and led by former Golden State Assistant coach, Mike Brown.

Preparatory to quadrennial games, D’Tigers against all odds embarrassed one of the powerhouse countries in basketball, United States, by a slim margin, 90-87 in an exhibition game which many pundits tagged as an upset because no African country had ever achieved such feat.

Going further, there will be high expectations from the D’Tigers going by the caliber of players, within the rank of the team especially the overseas-born, who are having more interest in putting on the green and white jersey of the national colours.

With the influx of more players in D’Tiger’s camp, the team should be a force to reckon with in the world starting from a good show in Paris 2024.

Forces against D’Tigers

Recall that the fortune of D’Tigers would have soared more than what it is today if not for the in-fighting in the administration especially when the Federal Government through the Minister of Youths and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, decided to pull the teams out of international tournaments for the next two years.

There has been in-fighting in the ranks of the administrator for over seven years. Throughout this time, Nigerian basketball was ruffled in a leadership tussle between two factions laying claims to the soul of Nigerian Basketball Federation (NBBF).

The two gladiators, Ahmadu Musa Kida and T.J. Umar were constantly at each other’s throats over the NBBF presidency. At the end, Kida had his own election in Abuja which was supervised by the sports ministry. While Umar on the other space, conducted a parallel election in Kano. Howbeit, the world basketball body, FIBA, recognised Kida’s election.

The Sports ministry at various times tried to reconcile the warring factions with a ‘reconciliation committee’ but with FIBA deadline at hand, ministry officials announced that the election be rescheduled to hold in Abuja.

But in an apparent look, many pundits believed that FIBA might be taking sides by recognizing the Benin Congress as the authentic election, the polls which produced Kida.

Although the congress in Benin has in attendance 28 states, with four of the seven elected representatives also in attendance, while the National Olympics Committee (NOC) and FIBA were represented as observers, another congress and parallel election in Abuja which produced Igoche Mark, which has in attendance delegates together with some current and former basketball players, should not have taken place.  

However, for a reason the sports ministry has not explained, which was at variance with the FIBA Stance.

In order to forestall further embarrassment, the Sports Ministry chose to withdraw the country from all international competitions, claiming that it wants to use the period to grow the sport in Nigeria.

The decision, was later jettisoned as both camps sensing what they might lose, decided to come together. However, the ban came with a consequence as the country’s decision to pull out of international competitions, means that FIBA needs to replace Nigeria women's team, D’Tigress, with Mali in the list of teams billed to participate in the Australia 2022 World Cup, after qualification, as the only African team to play in the World Cup slated for Sydney.

In the statement, FIBA said the NBBF “is unable to confirm its participation in the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2022.” The world body added that it, “will announce whether there will be any other decisions related to the NBBF’s participation in other FIBA competitions and any potential disciplinary measures in due course.”

The statement reads: “FIBA was informed about the decision of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to withdraw the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) from all international basketball competitions and activities for a period of two years.

“In subsequent communications with the NBBF, and despite FIBA’s request, it has become clear that against the circumstances created by the government’s decision, the NBBF is unable to confirm its participation in the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2022.

“Given the multiple strict deadlines that cannot be postponed to ensure the successful staging of a major international event (visa procedures, schedules, ticket sales, accommodations, friendly games, preliminary rosters, flight tickets, accreditations, etc.) and to protect the integrity of the competition, the FIBA executive committee has decided that Mali, as the next ranked team from Group B of the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2022 Qualifying Tournament in Belgrade, is invited to participate in the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2022.

“FIBA will announce whether there will be any other decisions related to the NBBF’s participation in other FIBA competitions and any potential disciplinary measures in due course.”

D’Tigers were also replaced in the list of teams to feature in the FIBA World Cup qualifying competition.

The world body has also warned that the impact of government’s action will last longer than the proposed two years. Article 9.7 of FIBA’s statutes on third party interference prohibits governments from running national teams and the sport, which means that Nigeria could face sanctions for government’s interference in the NBBF affairs.

In a message to NBBF President, Musa Kida, FIBA wrote: “Any withdrawal of Nigeria from the competitions will trigger potential disciplinary sanctions as per the FIBA internal regulations.

“Furthermore, if the absence of Nigeria from international competitions for the next two years materialises, the consequences may spread out well past such a two-year period.

“For example, please note that the withdrawal from the FBWC23 qualifiers is also a withdrawal from the Paris 2024 Olympic qualification process.

“Similarly, depending on third-party results, the same situation could apply with respect to FIBA Afro Basket 2025.” 

Afraid of what would become of their career in the midst of the bad vibes from the basketball house, some of the overseas-based players have begged the Federal Government to reverse its decision to stay away from the international community.

Way Forward

With the dust settled over the past imbroglio of leadership tussle which has also impacted negatively on the local competition, D’Tigers must begin to look ahead of the qualification and more than this, they should be ready to perform better given the arrays of stars that now make up of the team.

On the part of the administrators and the warring faction, they should realize the danger of putting their respective interest above the national interest.

Without doubt, Nigeria is blessed with abundance of talents, yet, to make a desirous leap in fortune and become a force to be reckoned with in the global basketball ecosystem, there is a need to have more grassroots developmental programmes targeted at the very young ones.

It is expected that the two gladiators, Tijani Umar, who is a Permanent Secretary in the Presidency and Musa Kida, a retired former Group Managing Director of Total Oil, who in his first term, made Nigeria number one in the men and women in Africa and took the men’s team to the 2020 Olympics, work together for the good of the country.

Over the years, Nigeria has been able to assemble a formidable national basketball team, which have dominated Africa, and now they are ranked number 1 in Africa, so the team has no excuse not only to qualify for the Olympics, but also up their ante in the Olympic games to at least qualify for the second round.