By Victor Kanayo
Nigeria will be missing when 2023 FIBA basketball World Cup gets underway at Philippines , between August 25 and September 10.
This is because at the end of qualifier in the final window, Nigeria’s D’Tigers failed to book a place at the dunking and slamming mundial.
Up to 32 teams will be taking part in the global competition.
Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Georgia, Iran, Jordan, Mexico, Montenegro, Puerto Rico, Serbia, South Sudan, USA and Venezuela were the last countries to stamp their participation to complete the list.
According to organisers, this year’s competition will feature nine countries, who did not take part in the previous edition in 2019.
It will be the first World Cup participation for Cape Verde, Georgia, Latvia and South Sudan.
Egypt, Finland, Lebanon, Mexico and Slovenia, are back on the biggest stage of international basketball.
The next step for the 32 qualified teams will be, finding out what groups they will play in and who they will face, as they do battle to be crowned world champions.
The answers will come on Saturday, April 29, when the draw takes place in Araneta Coliseum, Manila, one of the competition’s host venues in the Philippines.
*The 28 teams that played in the second round of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 Qualifiers, did not qualify for the World Cup, and the additional 12 teams among the highest-ranked teams from the teams that did not qualify for the second round of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 qualifiers will compete in the FIBA Olympic pre-qualifying tournaments.
They are Mali for Africa, Chile, Cuba and Virgin Islands for Americas, Chinese Taipei, Indonesia, Korea and Syria for Asia and for Europe.
The winner of each group of the FIBA EuroBasket 2025 pre-Qualifiers, (North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal) and the best European ranked team that did not qualify for the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 (that team being Russia which, according to the decision of the Central Board in December 2022, is followed by Croatia with the final decision to be taken at the Central Board on April 28).
The tournaments will take place from August 12 to 20, 2023.
Five teams from those FIBA Olympic pre-qualifying tournaments will qualify for the FIBA Olympic qualifying tournaments in 2024.
Below are the full list of countries from four continents for 2023 FIBA World Cup.
Africa: Angola, Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, South Sudan.
Americas: Brazil, Canada, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico, USA, Venezuela.
Asia: Australia, China, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Lebanon, New Zealand, Philippines.
Europe: France, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain.
