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By Joe Apu
Nigeria’s power ranking after the fourth window of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 African Qualifiers has dropped four places to ninth place.
The power ranking was recently posted on the FIBA. basketball had already qualified Cote d’Ivoire in number one. This is courtesy of the fact that Cote d’Ivoire became the African first team to qualify for the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup after a perfect 3-0 record in the latest qualification window in Abidjan and Monastir, leaving four tickets up for grabs for the continent of Africa.
Back in 2019 during the World Cup African Qualifiers, Nigeria boasted a 9-0 mark and was one of the two teams – alongside Tunisia – to have qualified for the China showdown.
However, having three different head coaches (Julius Nwosu, Alan Major and Mfon Udofia) over the last nine games, plus a number of new players and an apparent lack of team chemistry seem to have influenced Nigeria’s current 3-4 record.
The two losses to Angola and Cote d’Ivoire in Abidjan last week were a major blow for Nigeria to deal with.
Making it to the Indonesia-Japan-Philippines showpiece has become an uphill task for D’Tigers, but not impossible to overcome.
Though Nigeria is still the number one ranked African nation in the Nike ranking for FIBA, the Nigeria Basketball Federation, NBBF will look forward to D’Tigers winning all three games billed for the February 2023 window.
President of the NBBF Ahmadu Musa Kida admits that the task ahead is challenging but he insists that there is hope at the end of the tunnel. “Where are in a tough situation but there’s hope of Nigeria still making it to the World Cup.”
South Sudan, Egypt, Angola, Senegal, Cape Verde, Tunisia and DR Congo are all ahead of Nigeria.
