By Victor Kanayo
Nigeria’s men’s basketball team, D’Tigers, have secured a spot at the 2025 Afrobasket Championship in Angola.
D’Tigers bounced back with two wins at the ongoing Afrobasket qualifiers in Libya after losing all three games in the previous qualifying series.
The West Africans defeated Libya 75-70 in their first game, thanks to outstanding performances from Caleb Agada and Talib Zanna.
They then recorded an 87-67 victory over Uganda in their second game.
With these two wins, D’Tigers accumulated seven points before beating Cape Verde 77-62 in their final Group B match.
However, FIBA announced on Sunday that all teams in the group had qualified for the Afrobasket tournament, rendering the game against Cape Verde inconsequential.
So far, 16 national teams have qualified for the 2025 FIBA Afrobasket tournament following the completion of the third window of qualifiers.
A total of 20 national teams played 59 matches across three qualifying windows in six African cities.
The qualifiers began with Window 1 in Monastir, Tunisia, and Cairo, Egypt, in February 2024, followed by Window 2 in Dakar, Senegal, before concluding this month in Antananarivo, Rabat, and Tripoli.
Of the national teams that participated in the qualifiers, the Central African Republic, Gabon, Kenya, and Morocco were eliminated, while 16 teams secured their spots for the final tournament, which will be held in Angola from 12 to 24 August.
On Sunday, 23 February, Guinea and Rwanda claimed the last two tickets to this year’s African showpiece.
The full list of teams qualified for the 2025 FIBA Afrobasket are Angola, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Guinea, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Sudan, Tunisia, and Uganda.
