FIBA AfroCan: Afuwape Leads D’Tigers To First-Ever Victory
D’Tigers of Nigeria started its campaign at the 2023 FIBA AfroCan basketball tournament on a winning note, beating Mali 62-56 courtesy of a man-of-the-match performance by Michael Afuwape, at the Pavilhão Multiusos de Luanda in Angola on Sunday.
Nigeria lost all its matches in the inaugural edition of the tournament in Mali in 2019. However, they were determined to prove their doubters wrong this time.
Though Mali put up some resistance in the final stretch, Nigeria kept the game under their control and cruised to a 62-56 win. Nigeria led by as many as 14 points at some point in the game and never trailed.
“We’re happy coming off this first game with a win against Mali, we know how hard tournament openers can be,” D’Tigers point guard Afuwape said after the match.
“It’s a moral booster for us. Looking back at the game, Mali have been very resilient, they kept coming back and never gave up. So I think as from now, we need to be more careful with our turnovers.”
Afuwape, Chinedu Chimbuo and Ibe Agu combined to give D’Tigers 41 points. They were the only three Nigerian players to score in double digits, each contributing 16, 15 and 10 points, respectively.
Afuwape went on to further add four rebounds, four assists and two steals to his stats in a man-of-the-match performance.
The tournament which kicked off on July 8th is expected to end on July 16th in Angola.
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