The national basketball team D’Tigers take on France Monday afternoon in a last gasp attempt to get a place in the quarterfinals at the London 2012 Olympics.
The Nigerian team have won one and lost three matches and stand a chance to scale through if they win today’s match but their progress depends on the outcome of the match between Lithuania and Tunisia.
The basketball team who qualified through a second chance are struggling to make the next round at the Olympics with the many athletes in Team Nigeria eliminated, starting with table tennis through athletics.
But despite the support the basketballers are getting, the coach of the team Ayo Bakare has confessed that the team need to get over their injury woes to have any meaningful contest against France who are already through to the quarter finals stage.
He said, “We have always had the injury problems before we arrived in London but we had just decided to endure and play on. We felt that solving a problem is always better than running away from it.
“But at this stage we may likely enter into the last match without any point guard. Against Argentina we had to use small forward when we had no point guard left. The injury problem is at the highest now and that is why I have to speak. I am not using that as any excuse but it would have been much better if we had everyone fit especially in such sensitive position as point guard.”
On Saturday, the Nigerians lost to Argentina 93-79 as their chances of progressing got slimmer.
Nigeria will play the next match without their main guard Tony Skinn and Dayo Dagunduro.
Nigeria and Lithuania have won only a game each with just one game in hand. The Europeans are fourth on the table ahead of Nigeria because they defeated the Tigers. They will face Tunisia in their last match also today. The top four teams will qualify from the group.
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