If there was any expectation of invincibility for the Americans heading into the Tokyo Olympics, it’s already gone — after Nigeria’s D’Tigers roared to a shock 90-87 win early Sunday morning.
D’Tigers pulled off the international shocker with a roster primarily filled of little-known NBA players that found a way to beat a group of All-NBA, All-Star and max-contract performers.
The 22nd-ranked nation by FIBA beating the No. 1-ranked team and three-time reigning Olympic gold medalists.
“I thought that the Nigerian team played very physically, did a great job in that regard and knocked down a lot of 3s,” U.S. coach Gregg Popovich said. “Give them credit.”
Gabe Nnamdi of Miami Heat led Nigeria with 21 points. Caleb Agada scored 17 points, Ike Nwamu added 13 and Nigeria outscored the U.S. 60-30 from 3-point range.
Kevin Durant, who had never before played in a loss for USA Basketball in 39 senior international games, had 17 points. Jayson Tatum added 15, Damian Lillard had 14 and Nigeria-born Bam Adebayo 11.
“Just goes to show that we have to play better,” Tatum said.
The Americans had gone 39-0 in their last three Olympic seasons — including pre-Olympic exhibitions — on their way to gold medals and had been 54-2 in major exhibitions since NBA players began playing for USA Basketball in 1992. Plus, they’d beaten Nigeria by a combined 127 points in their last two meetings, one at the 2012 London Games, the other a warm-up for the 2016 Rio Games.
Nigeria lost to the U.S. at the 2012 Olympics by 83 points. Lost to the Americans again four years later in an exhibition, that time by 44 points.
Not this time.
“Nigeria’s come a long way with their basketball,” USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo said.
Ike Iroegbu — a former Washington State player who spent some time in the G League — hit a 3-pointer with about 1:15 left to put Nigeria up 88-80. Durant scored the next seven points for the U.S; a 3-pointer, two free throws following a turnover, then two more from the line with 16.5 seconds remaining.
Nnamdi made two foul shots with 13.2 seconds left to restore Nigeria’s 3-point edge. The Americans ran 9.7 seconds off the clock on the ensuing possession without getting a shot off, and Zach LaVine missed a pair of free throws — the second intentionally — with 3.5 seconds left.
Precious Achiuwa got the rebound for Nigeria, and that was it. It’s only an exhibition — but the upset was still of the massive variety.
Popovich heard the final buzzer and shook hands with Nigeria coach Mike Brown, the Golden State assistant, as the Americans walked off stunned.
The bigger scare was the scoreboard. Nigeria trailed only 43-41 at the half, led for long stretches of the opening 20 minutes, and simply wasn’t going away.
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COMMENTS
This is what selecting your available best anywhere in the world can do. It gives you a chance. Mr. Minister and the Gang, I hope you can see.
Good one
I like the way he motivates and drives his team, giving them.the needed confidence to do well. I’m expecting a medal from this team at the Olympic.
Hyped for both D tiger and D Tigress..
Great progression. Hopefully such positive trajectory is maintained.
Great job Mike Brown..
Respect to the visionary; Ahmadu Kida
The other day someone was clamoring for home based basketball players. Lmaoo wetin we dey see here na 7up meaning the difference is clear. Lmaoo
Fanatic pls don’t bring this let us enjoy this victory before you let people take advantage of this and talk plenty. I watched the game at dawn and I was really impressed at our 3 point conversion rate. Team Nigeria is just too packed with super exciting players both Male and Female. The coaches are doing a great job,very confident and they are not making excuses like Rohr ahead of time. If you do your homework well you will not worry about the scores!!!
Ok Brother I rest my case here lol but that’s just what someone said last week… Just repeating it lol.
Hahahaha…. the hypocrite wants to enjoy the victory now that DTigers and the NBBF has slapped him and his clueless nepotistic quota system sports minister, but goes on to make baseless comparisons with Rohr….. LMAOOOO. Why won’t Rohr make excuses for you ahead of time when you and your agents of backwardness wouldn’t even allow him choose the best Nigerian footballers on the planet in peace…? And by the way, he should show us where Mike brown has ever boasted he will win the Olympics.
When we say your players must play regularly with the best to beat the best we say it because we know the place of quality and meritocracy in every human endeavour. Not like illusionists who fool themselves with their belief in the medicortiy producte from the home front under the illusion of MANY TALENTS….the MANY TALENTS who wouldn’t even know where to stand on the court/pitch when faced with standard opposition. A Nigerian victory over the USA in an international basketball (male and female) game was long coming….it was only a matter of time. We’ve been steadily bridging that gap overtime, narrowing it to down last gap losses in recent times with more top league players featuring in our national teams. This win was long coming and is indeed heartwarming and a sign of greater things to come. There’s no substitute for true quality….you can’t give what you don’t have.
“We must improve the local content in our sports” my foot.
Nigerians abroad must be less Nigerian than Nigerians at home. LMAOooo
It’s very funny though because the last time I checked out basketball local clubs didn’t do well in their African basketball championships.
That’s my major turn off with Rohr. He is the exact opposite of Brown when it comes to motivation.
Mike Brown frowned at D’Tigers’ ranking by FIBA. He’s not afraid to drop players, (it’s not easy for a coach to drop a player like Diogu in D’Tigers). He talks tough going into even friendly matches, rates the chances of his team going into competition so high. He’s always very positive going into any context his musketeers are involved in.
To Brown, Nigeria is a medal candidate at Tokyo 2021. Of course , he knows the game so well; both in the mental and the physical forms of it. Reason his team could pull off this massive win against the Americans.
I was so amazed by the zeal, the fearlessness, the confidence, with which D’Tigers attacked the guys from Yankee, knocking down 3 pointers with absolute accuracy and defending with the fierceness of a tiger. Even the non-NBA stars in that team were super good on the court with their ravishing skill set. You can’t have a coach like Mike Brown and will like to lose. It’s not just possible. He s a coach who knows that no amount of motivation you give your team that will make them go complacent against a team like the USA in basketball.
But Rohr, in a bid to stay modest, maybe respectful to the other team or lower the expectations of the fans, demoralizes his own team, focussing on their weaknesses in the media than strength. He always makes them see how poor they are than how good they should be. He always has a way of providing a soft landing for his failure. Even against supposed weak teams, Rohr always makes his team believe they may not escape defeat. Now , compare what Rohr’s SE got against Serra Leone in Benin to what’s Brown’s D’Tigers for against mighty America in USA. That’s how far a coach’s confidence in his team can go in driving them to achieve either success or failure.
Genot Rohr should take some lessons from Mike Brown, honestly speaking.
Hahahaha…. compare what Rohr’s team got Vs S/L to what DTigers got Vs USA….. LMAOOOO….what about comparing what Rohr’s team got Vs Argentina (4-2) and Brazil
(1-1) to what DTigers got Vs USA….?! LMAO.
The same coach who “demoralises” his team has the highest wins to games played ratio than any other Nigerian ever. What an irony…Lmao
@Dr.Drey… I want to beg you never to mention our 4-2 victory against Argentina in that friendly again… Alex Iwobi did excellent in that friendly and against England at Wmbley… but Rohr went to World Cup and got confused who to play and who not to play in his team… in the qualifiers, it was always an Onazi/Ndidi pairing but for whatever happened between Onazi speaking out that Mikel needs to commit body and tackles to the game as much as any other midfielder… Mikel asked for Onazi to be shut out and we had a midfield trio of Mikel/Ndidi/Etebo… Which largely couldn’t do us the job when we needed grit and confidence… Iwobi was not rated for that World Cup by Rohr… Why we cannot give any kudos to Rohr especially with that friendly win against Argentina before the world cup is simple for the reason that when it mattered most in the world cup proper… he could not manage an advantage for as little as 4minutes to closeout a game against an Argentine team that were already confused and frantic with ouster staring them in the face…
Hahahaha….pls record this your comment and listen to what your finger just typed…LMAO
We shouldn’t attribute the 4-2 win over Argentina to Rohr simply because Iwobi played well but we can attribute the loss 2-1 with 4 mins to Rohr because it was Rohr that told Victor Moses to bigboyishly leave his man unmarked enough to be able to use his weaker foot to perfectly place the ball in the back of the net…Lolz.
We can also attribute the 4-4 draw to SL to Rohr because it was Rohr that instructed the trio of chukwueze, Iwobi and Zaidu to give away the goals that brought the SLans back into the game…. LMAOOOO. The height of your hatred for Rohr….his victories are neve to be attributed to him. But Mike Brown gets all the glory for the many 3 pointers his players score to win the USA. The height of hypocrisy.
@PapaFem …. The difference between Mike Brown’s team and Rohr’s team is stated below :
– No Quota system for local players for Basketball and Quota system for local players for the Football team
– 85% of the basketball team players are from NBA ( Best league in the world ) and less than 40% of the Football team plays in top 5 league in the world
– The basketball team are not fighting for their allowances and salary , WHILE the football team are still yet to be paid for their allowances and salary
– No interference from the EX basketball players WHILE almost every ex player interfere in the affairs of the football team
If you need more reasons , just ask
May be you forgot to add that while Mike Brown has a way motivating his team, GR is an expert in making them believe thst they can’t measure up.
Their 3 point shooting was phenomenal. With this result Nigeria became the first African team to beat the USA in a basketball game. That’s the result of doing things on merit. With a sizable number of NBA players and foreign born Nigerians in diaspora we can now stand toe to toe with the almighty USA in basketball. I remember in 2012 London Olympics we lost to them by 70 plus points. Coach Mike Brown is not making excuses because he doesn’t have a single home based player in his team. No quota system is reserved for any home based player in his team. Even the ever reliant Aminu was dropped. Some team that can not qualify for ordinary CHAN are the one that deserve a quota in our darling team the SuperEagles. Lmao!! The big mouth Sports minister with his queens English should go and tell Mr Brown a bonafide American that quotas should be reserved for home based basketball players. Lmao’!!!
Your miserable self and family will never smell the foot of the sports minister. Cheap talker!
This is what happens when things are done on merit,with no quota system, with no federal character, with no tribalism, with no ethnicity, with no favoritism, with no greedy and corrupt officials breathing down the coach neck to play their players for their own selfish interest.
These factors have conspired to keep us perpetually as a potentially great country in all aspects of our National life.
Coach Mike Brown got balls.He dropped his experienced but aging captain for younger , verile and agile players.He told the world in clear terms that he is not going to Tokyo to make up the numbers that he is going there to win.
A lesson for our other national coaches.It is the confidence that you exudes that percolate down the team.
But in truth, the gap between the basketball teams of both countries have been gradually closing down the last few years( inclusive of the female teams) Our ladies lost to the American by a very narrow margin the last time out.
Bring them on in 12 days time.Bravo D Tigers.
Thank you mr toni
Another good and exceptional result from NBA. You guys put a great smile on my face. My praise also goes to NBA Board members, I believe they really have strong Board filled with great minds, that’s why we are seeing this good results from the Male and Female basketball team. It wouldn’t be a bad ideal if other Board members from Football team, Handball team, Volleyball team, etc can associate themselves with the NBA to learn how they were able to achieve these success. Nigeria has talents in every sports and most of them are in different parts of the world. With good and sound Board Members, they can be able to get the best of Coaches and the Coaches too will get the best of players too. My prayers is that other sports will reach this hight. Good bless Nigeria
@Papafem thanks for the brilliant submission.
You don’t recycle underperforming players and expect a team to sit-up; you don’t kill the morale of a team before a match and expect them to show-up; you don’t look for excuses to hide your technical deficiency before the ball is kicked, motivation and boosting the morale of a team goes a long way.
Once again, SE has slipped to #36 in the world, and now #5 in Africa (the same position we were when he was hired). The law of diminishing returns has set-in.
They keep going back while the world is moving forward. They say GR won against Argentina, and we told them it’s not something new because we did it before.
They say GR qualified us for ANC and WC, we remind them that it’s not something new for SE to qualify and participate in the WC.
They say GR did well at the last ANC and WC, they ignore the way Belmadi silenced him and the manner we were dumped out of the group stage,they ignore the fact that we won the last ANC we attended and moved beyond the group stage in the previous WC.
They say Belmadi’s boy deserved contract renewal for taking our SE to higher ranking, we pointed out the fact that he’s done his best and it’s time to raise the bar.
What is GR score card against the top 5 ranked African countries
If they want to discuss GR’s record, the major records that will be on his resume are :
1. The first SE coach to spend a year without a win.
2. The first SE coach to loose a 4 goal lead.
3. The first SE coach to loose to Cameroon in open play in 32 years.
The good thing is that the clauses in his contract will soon be tested and activated. To GR fans:
Do you think the SE has the team to win ANC ?
Were the SE the favorites in the last two ANC they won ?
Do you think GR has the technical ability and motivation like Keshi or Westerhof to win the ANC ?
I have seen enough to conclude that the SE technical bench needs to be revamped and reinforced to make a meaningful progress.
Mr. Pinnick, its time to stop picnicking and do the right thing.
How did this guy get the SE job in the first place.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gernot_Rohr
This is trash…..u need to learn how to criticize….which group stage was the S.E dumped out from,we won the last ANC we went to,but u also forgot to add we have only 3 ANC since its inception, probably because na only 3 ANC we have qualified before Rohr came in lol.. also the same keshi you want to glorify to suit ur argument was greatly insulted because he failed to qualify us for the next Afcon…Lastly,tell me the new thing you want the coach to achieve since all his achievements are nothing new.
I ignored his barrage of lies the moment I got to this comment
“…. Once again, SE has slipped to #36 in the world, and now #5 in Africa (the same position we were when he was hired)…”
https://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/men?dateId=id13295
Pls click the link above and see where FIFA boldly wrote our name in no 70th position in the world (and 17th in Africa) in July 2016 before Rohr took over in August 2016 and move us up about FOURTY (40) places in 4 years. Congo brazaville, Uganda and Benin Rep were above us and we couldnt even qualify for AFCON back to back…..LMAOOoo….and yet they can open their mouths to talk. Some people have ZERO shame.
So how about the record of being the only coach to have moved the super eagles average of 10 places up the FIFA ladder annually during his tenure….LMAO
What is Rohr’s scorecard against top 5 African opposition he has faced thus far:
Cameroon 4 games 2 wins 2 draws 1 loss
Tunisia 2 games 1 win 1 draw
Senegal 2 games 1 draw
Algeria 4 games 1 win 1 draw 2 losses.
Egypt 1 game 1 win
Total 12 games played 6 wins 4 draws 3 losses. I stand to be corrected though, but anybody with more accurate data can provide it.
Haters are busy peddling so called records that have no meaning nor hurt us in anyway….LMAOoooo. How about the important and consequential record of qualifying 4 times back to back with games to spare or the record of qualifying with 2 games to spare….LMAOooo. And how about the record of still being the SE coach dead or alive with the highest win ratio as coach…..LMAOOoo.
Hatred has the ability to bring out the imbecile a human being.
Cameroon 5 games 2 wins 2 draws 1 loss
Tunisia 2 games 1 win 1 draw
Senegal 1 games 1 draw
Algeria 4 games 1 win 1 draw 2 losses.
Egypt 1 game 1 win
Looking at the manner of the losses: 0-1 to Cameroon (friendly), 0-1 (friendly) and 1-2 (competitive) to Algeria….all very narrow hard fought losses. As a matter of fact, when teams win against Rohr, you see them almost carrying their legs in the arms going by how hard they have been made to work to earn the narrow victory….LMAOoooo. Our SE nowadays lose fighting to the last, not like the days of Super Chickens of their african guadiolas.
Rohr’s tenure would soon be over…they can go bring their $1m per month Pep Mourinho who will never lose matches as SE coach.
And lastly, how did Rohr get the job…? He was recommended to Pinnick by a certain Arsene Wenger after former Olympic Lyon coach Paul Le Guen humiliated us in the presence of the whole world and called targets achieved by Rohr (WC qualification and AFCON Semis by a team ranked 70th in the world) IMPOSSIBLE.
You are a complete clown @Larry,lolz…Rohr is the best thing to happen to Nigerian football in years, observe how there has been a decline since the NFF gave him a new contact that grants them power to interfere with his selections and also imposes NPFL players on him… The die is cast bro, but don’t be hasty, Rohr will lead us to both the nation’s cup and the world cup as well, lolz…
I’m not saying GR is a bad coach. Of course he’s not, even though I’ve some reservations about his tactical decisions. But let him stop running his team down mentally. He has no business playing a match or attending a competition if he knows the team has no capacity to win it. Make the players believe no team on the planet can stand on their way to success if they really want to make their presence count.
You can’t be telling your players through the press that the team they are going up against is stronger than them because their players ply their trade in this league or that championship and you expect such players to attack their opponents with confidence. How many Nigerian players were in top leagues in 1994 when they shook the world?
But the team had a coach in Westerhoff, who feared no one and he passed this warrior spirit down to the team. Reason they held their own against seasoned teams.
I saw his comments about our chances at 2018 WC as denigrating, making us believe the team was too young to do well. We all heard what he said about local players and the local league when home based SEs were about taking on Mexico. Everybody knew it would take a miracle to beat this central American team, just like we never expected our DT to beat the US. He didn’t need to tell us, or remind the players if their inferiority. We knew! But telling them approach the match like they were Brazil and Mexico Papua New Guinea would cause no harm either. After all, it was men against men, 11 agsinst 11.
No one should underestimate the power of motivation in winning a battle. When a general is exhibiting symptoms of doubts or passing a vote of no confidence in his warrior , the battle is as good as over, even before it fought.
We defeated Bulgaria and Greece in 1994, both teams didn’t have many top players in top leagues either. But even with 1 man down for well over 45 mins, we couldn’t maintain a lead vs Italy nor defeat them….where was the “power of motivation”. Why didnt power of motivation help your home-based when they played against Mexico…or where they not motivated enough…?
Maybe you can explain to us how the same coach who “demoralizes” his players before games has got the same demoralized players to win more matches per games played than any other Nigerian coach since 1945, despite being the only team to have gone as long as 2 years without being paid a dime of their emoluments. Yet it was within that same period he “demoralized” his team all the way to qualifying for a tournament for the 1st time ever in the history of Nigerian football with 2 games to spare, whereas the loud mouthed Guadiolas who will threaten and promise to rain fire and brimstone on opponents in the press couldn’t make it to ordinary AFCON 3 out of 4 times
So pls explain the nexus in your claims.
Bragging openly in the press doesnt win games, its what you tell/teach your players on the training ground that wins you games if implemented to the latter.
Watch the highlight here
Watch the highlight here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWlAxHYLt5c
The full game is available on youtube too for anyone who wants to see it. Our matches when we didnt have NBA players dominating the national team are also there for anyone to watch and compare…then and now.
This is unarguably the most talented basketball team we’ve ever had. Quality has no hiding place. You could as well wear the USA jersey on those DTigers players and they wouldn’t look out of place in terms of their quality. When we say our players should play in top leagues e get why. You cant be playing in the NBA week in week out (not benchwarmer or collegiate or backwater leagues) and be jittery or suffer from “stage freight” when facing your fellow NBA mates on a basketball court anywhere or under any platform.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoLGgM3GigQ
Nigeria downs global basket ball juggernaut USA!
We have already had a DREAM TEAM in Olympic football. Is this our basketball DREAM TEAM?
As already mentioned, this result shows what can happen when you feature ONLY THE BEST PLAYERS you have available. Imagine what would have happened if we played only HB players?
Congrats, boys.
My only issue now is their names – D’TIGERS and D’TIGRESS.
Tiger no dey Nigeria na. Tiger no dey Africa sef. Tiger can only be found in India and some parts of Asia. Should they not be named with an animal that is indigenous to Nigeria? We might as well have named them D’POLAR BEARS, or D’PANDAS, or even D’KANGAROOS. It’s ridiculous.