Nigeria’s D’Tigers have taken a big step towards qualifying for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games with 83-66 win against Ivory Coast in their classification game at the 2019 FIBA Men’s World Cup in China on Friday morning, reports Completesports.com.
Coming from the impressive win against Korea in their last Group B fixture on Wednesday, D’Tigers took the game to their fellow West Africans right from the start making it six wins from the last seven meetings against the Ivorians.
Nigeria led 24-18 at the end of the first quarter with Al-Farouk Aminu contributing seven points.
Ivory Coast fought back and reduced Nigeria’s lead to two points at the end of the first half as the D’Tigers led 37-35.
Things however changed in the third quarter as the D’Tigers regained momentum and led 63-46 going into the final part of the game.
There was no going back from Alex Nwora’s charges as they won 83-66 at the end of proceedings.
Their next next opponent in the FIBA World Cup classification games is against host, China on Sunday morning.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s chances of picking the Olympics ticket at the 2019 FIBA World Cup got a big boost with Angola going down to a 71-62 defeat to Iran in their first classification game.
The best placed African team in the competition will pick the automatic ticket to Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
By Adeboye Amosu
