Finally Nigerian Tigers beat Angola to African trophy

D’Tigers celebrating Nigeria’s AfroBasket victory in Tunisia ...on Sunday
| credits: FIBA

Until Sunday night, Angola had beaten Nigeria 9-0 as the country struggled to win the first African basketball trophy reports Pius Ayinor

Nigeria beat Angola 74-65 in the final match of AfroBasket 2015 in Rades, Tunisia, on Sunday to claim their first-ever continental trophy.

The Tigers were not just crowned African champions. The historic win for D’Tigers also gave Nigeria a ticket to the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympics. It will be the second Olympic appearance for Nigeria’s men’s team after the first showing at the London 2012 Olympics.

Before the Sunday game Angola had beaten Nigeria in all nine times that they had met since 1987. In those meets Angola beat the Tigers in the final matches of 1999 in Luanda and 2003 in Alexandria, Egypt which was the last time they battled until August 30, 2015. It was not the dearth of talent that denied Nigeria success; it was more of organisational problems.

Chamberlain Oguchi who rained three-pointers throughout the competition in Tunisia was voted the Most Valuable Player.

His three-pointers on Sunday gave him a game-high 19 points for Nigeria, while Olaseni Lawal finished with 12. Veteran Carlos Morais led the Angolans with 15 points while Yanick Moreira hit 13.

The 29-year-old Oguchi led the All-Star Five line-up which also included his team-mate Al-Farouq Aminu, Morais of Angola, Tunisia’s Makram Ben Romdhane and Gorgui Dieng of Senegal. Dieng was the pre-tournamnet favourite to emerge as the MVP.

Oguchi told Fiba.com in Rades, “It’s the best moment of my life, to be able to come here after missing the last AfroBasket, to be able to come here and do this with my brothers, it feels amazing.

“I’m happy to be able to share this moment with them and for me personally, it’s just really great.”

When the guard arrived in Nigeria for the 2005 edition, he showed up as a youngster with well arranged dreadlocks. But when he returned for the London 2012 Olympics he played with a well-shaved head. The only items that proved it was the same player were his name and his style of play. In an interview with The PUNCH in London he had a quick answer to his new look.

“Ahhh it’s still Chamberlain but you know maturity has come. I am a man now,” he said with a hearty laughter.

He was missed at the 2012 Afrobasket held in Cote d’Ivoire where a quality Nigerian side powered by Ike Diogu was surprisingly halted at the quarter-finals by Senegal. This term, Diogu who was the competition’s highest scorer in 2012 got injured before the jump ball and sat out all through the Tunisia tournament on the bench as a chief supporter and advisor.

The next major work for D’Tigers is the Rio Olympics. In London the outing wasn’t the way they wanted it.

Obande Ogbole, a former national team player and an avid follower of D’Tigers believes the goals in Rio are attainable.

“What we need do is to start preparations now. The usual short-term training camp to the Olympics can’t help us,” he told The PUNCH.

On Sunday Angola went into the final looking to win a 12th African title and led early on, before Nigeria’s rotation made the difference as they turned the score around in the second quarter and once they took the lead, they held on to it, going up by as many as 19 points at a stage.

Tunisia bounced back from their Semi-Final defeat to Angola on Saturday to beat Senegal 82-73 in the third-place game. Angola, Tunisia and Senegal booked their places for the 2016 FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments.

In the Classification Games, Egypt edged out Algeria 69-63 to finish fifth, Mali came in seventh after defeating Gabon 94-82, Cameroon cruised past Cape Verde 88-66 for ninth place, Mozambique topped Cote d’Ivoire 70-63 for 11th place, Morocco saw off Central African Republic 86-74 for 13th place and Uganda defeated Zimbabwe 72-64 for 15th place.