Breaking News

D’Tigers ranked 7th in Afrobasket Power rankings

 D’Tigers vs Australa

Nigeria has been ranked No. 7 in the FIBA power rankings for the 2021 Afrobasket scheduled to hold from August 24 to September 5 in Kigali the Rwanda capital.

The power rankings, which are different from the FIBA World Ranking presented by Nike, are based on the recent performances of the 16 teams that will battle in Kigali.

Power rankings are determined by dividing the sum of all the winning points, tie points, schedule points and bonus points by the number of games played.

Although Nigeria are ranked No. 1 in Africa according to the latest FIBA Nike rankings released early this month, their inability to attend the competition with the stars they took to the Olympics has adversely affected their chances on the ranking table.

Nigeria showed up at Tokyo Olympics last month with eight NBA players but none of them was available for Kigali.

When the country’s Basketball Federation announced their final roster a week before the AfroBasket 2021, Omotayo Jordan Ogundiran was the only returning player from the Qualifiers, where he averaged 2.7 points in three games.

Head coach of the team, Mike Brown, will need to be able to build a competitive team in a few days.

However, the chances of the No.1 team in Africa winning their second AfroBasket since 2015 are now being questioned.

Tunisia, winners of the 2017 edition are ranked No.1 while Senegal are ranked second in the power rankings.

Egypt, Angola and Ivory Coast are the other teams who complete the top 5.

No comments