The Nigeria men basketball team D’Tigers have been eliminated from the Tokyo 2020 Olympics following a third defeat in the preliminary round, this time to Italy.
In what was a must win game after losing to the first two to Australia and Germany, D’Tigers lost 80-71 in the early hours of Saturday morning to bring their Olympic campaign to an anti-climatic end.
At the end of Q1, Italy had a 12 point lead which was eventually cut down to one point by D’Tigers at half time as Italy went into the break 40-39 against D’Tigers.
Nigeria then continued the impressive run with Chimezie Metu leading the way with points from behind the arc to hurt the Italians as D’Tigers ended the third quarter 24-16 with an eight point advantage.
But as we’ve seen in D’Tigers previous games in Tokyo, the team had a poor Q4 recording only eight points to Italy’s 24, leaving Nigeria without a win at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic games.
Mike Brown and his team will now have to regroup and get ready for the 2021 FIBA Afrobasket Championship which begins in Rwanda in three weeks time.
