2019 FIBA World Cup: Nigeria Overwhelm Korea 108-66

A hugely inspired Nigeria’s men basketball team, D’Tigers put up an impressive performance to  overwhelm South Korea and record their first victory at the ongoing 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup in China on Wednesday morning.

The Group B match, which was fairly balanced in the first quarter with scores at 17-15 in favour of Nigeria, turned a one-sided affair as the D’ Tigers ran away with a score of 108-66 at the Wuhan Sports Center.

The victory gave Nigeria a chance of qualifying automatically for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics as the best African side at the World Cup following Tunisia’s  loss to Puerto Rico by  64-67 baskets

With the incentive of qualifying for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics on the table, Nigerian national team stepped up their game to end the second at
32-16

In the process, four players recorded double digits as D’Tigers gave their best, returning to winning ways in a convincing manner.

Michael Eric dropped 17 points and was one rebound away from a double double in his best game at the competition so far. The figures earned him the prestigious TCL Player of the game.

For the ever present Ike Diogu, who scored 16 points with six rebounds,   he again demonstrated great character on both ends of the court to limit Korea’s Ra Guna to just eight made field points out of 18 attempts.

Chimezie Metu and Ben Uzoh added 15 and 10 points in that order to restore dignity in the Nigerian camp following the close-shaved defeats to Russia and Argentina in their first and second outings at the Championship.

With the second quarter obviously serving as the turning point in the encounter, the Nigerians were unstoppable, turning up the heat and picking everything to make it count on the other end of the court.

The domination clearly showed with the D’Tigers establishing an unassailable 13-0 run that saw the third quarter closing at 30-19

Nigeria netted 50 points in the paint as compared to Korea’s 18 or rather Ra’s individual 18. No other Korean player managed to convert in the paint.

The fourth quarter also ended in D’Tigers’ favour at 29-16 and Coach Nwora certainly had cause to shower praises on the Nigerian bench for contributing 63 of the team’s total 108 points haul to push the team into the triple figures club at this World Cup.

Though already out of the  medal brackets, victory over the Koreans now sees the D’Tigers heading to Group M in Guangzhou along with Cote d’Ivoire and the loser between hosts China and Venezuela for the 17-32 Classification Round. – With agency reports