D’Tigers defeat Kenya to pick up second Afrobasket win
Nigeria on the verge of quarterfinals after two wins from two
Nigeria’s D’Tigers defeated Kenya 71-55 in their second preliminary round match at the 2021 Afrobasket to pick up a second consecutive win in the competition.
After their opening day victory over Mali, D’Tigers were facing a Kenya side that lost to Ivory Coast by 18 points in their opening match at the 2021 Afrobasket. The Nigerian side started the match very well as they raced to a 12-1 lead in the first quarter. They ended up winning the first quarter 20-8. The Kenyans fought hard in the second quarter, winning the quarter 18-14 to cut down the D’Tigers lead to just eight points at halftime with the scores at 34-26. D’Tigers exhibited control in the third quarter as they secured a 15-13 win in the third quarter to lead 49-39 going into the fourth quarter. The D’Tigers went on to win the fourth quarter 22-16, confirming their 71-55 results over Kenya in their second group match at the Afrobasket.
Kenya’s Albert Odero was in impressive form as he led the scoring in the match with 23 points and eight rebounds. Uzodinma Utomi led the scoring for the D’Tigers with 17 points. Jeremiah Mordi delivered an all-round performance as he finished with 10 points, 5 rebounds, 3 steals and 1 block. Ikenna Ndugba and TK Edogi recorded 9 points apiece to help the D’Tigers to defeat their counterparts from Kenya. The Nigerian team had 35 rebounds to Kenya’s 56 in the game, but had less than half of the turnovers of the Kenyan side. While the D’Tigers had only 13 turnovers in the match, Kenya had 28 turnovers. D’Tigers shooting from deep was much better with their accuracy of 33% (15 of 45) superior to the shooting of the Kenyan side, who had just 11% (2 of 18). D’Tigers also scored 10 of 16 from the free throw line, while Kenya scored only half of that total from the same number of attempts.
D’Tigers are in second place in the group after Ivory Coast won their matches by a superior points difference. Both sides will now lock horns in the final group match to determine who gets the automatic quarterfinals spot in the group.
