Musa Kida, the President Nigeria Basketball Federation, said he was confident in the ability of the senior national basketball team, D’Tigers to qualify for the 2019 FIBA World Cup coming up in China.
Kida, who watched D’Tigers beat teams from Rwanda, Uganda and Mali, in the just concluded qualifiers in Lagos said that the federation would stop at nothing to see Nigeria was in China.
Nigeria defeated Rwanda, Uganda and Mali in the just concluded qualifiers which held in Lagos from June 29 to July 1, a feat they also achieved in Mali in Bamako in 2017 which now puts the team in six victory out of six.
An elated Kida told the News Agency of Nigeria that the team, led by Coach Alex Nwora, was a fantastic set of professionals who were carefully selected based on their performances in Europe, Asia and the US.
Kida said: “We are blessed with quality internationals that have the capacity to lift the nation against any opposition in the African circuit.
“We have carefully selected them because of their qualities, and their will to represent their fatherland and the fact that they were not engage with club duties.
“We would stop at nothing to repeat of the same feat we did in Bamako, Mali where we beat all other three oppositions.’’
NAN reports that the next window of qualifications would begin in September where teams like Nigeria are in the same group with Senegal, Central African Republic, and Rwanda.
Others are Mali and Cote D’Ivoire which forms the six teams to compete in group F where the best two teams get automatic qualification and the third best team would go for playoffs.
Another Group F, have Tunisia, Cameroon, Angola, Egypt, Morocco and Chad where also the two best teams qualify and the third team would compete with the best third team form group G.
The third and final round of qualifiers come up in September and February 2019 in a yet to be announced dates and venues.
The best five teams would eventually make the cut from the Africa to join other 27 teams from the rest of the world for the first ever 32 teams’ world cup competition.
The world cup is set to take place in china from August 31 to September 15, 2019.