Former Nigeria Basketball International, Skambo Morrison has stated that the D’Tigers has described Nigerian men’s basketball team next game against Ivory coast men’s basketball side as an African rivalry matchup but believes D’Tigers should be able to defeat them in the 17th-32nd classification round like they did against South Korea in the group stage of the ongoing FIBA world cup.
He however pointed out that Les Éléphants will prove a much more difficult nut to crack than the Koreans as they also seek the ticket for the 2020 Olympic Men’s Basketball Tournament in Tokyo as African representative which is on the line.
In a chat with brila.net Skambo Morrison added that “Nigeria vs Ivory Coast is always tough it is going to be a big game, considering our loss away to the Ivorians at the FIBA world cup qualification game in February, it will be an African rivalry game, it will be a fight, even if Ivory coast have nothing at stake they would not just want to give us the chance to pick up the ticket but at the end D’Tigers will come out on top.”
The former Kada Stars player also adviced D’Tigers players to take the game and play for pride of nation/continent as Ivory coast have been competing with Nigeria to show that they have a more developmental basketball.
“The Ivorians shoots better balls than Nigeria while we like to score from the inside, but if the coach can apply a good matchup defense not giving them the room to shoot like D’Tigress defense is setup then we will win the game.”
D’Tigers face Cote d’Ivoire today before taking on hosts China for the Classification Round 17-32.
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