Afrobasket 2015: Nigeria Defeat Senegal To Qualify For Final

The Lions of Senegal failed in their attempt last night to have a repeat of their AfroBasket 2013 record as they fell to the superior power play of Nigeria’s D’ Tigers in a game that went into over­time with Nigeria emerg­ing the winner by 88-79 points and a chance to play for the sole ticket for Rio 2016 Olympics.

Nigeria began the game on a very fast pace dominating the first quar­ter 18-15 but Senegal came back strong in the second quarter winning 22-17 in their favor and also took the third quar­ter scoring 26-22 points but were overwhelmed by Nigeria’s comeback in the last and final quarter amassing a total of 19-13 points and tying the game at 76-76 at full time.


The overtime proved the moment of grit for Nigeria as they went all out scoring 12-3 points to wrap up the game at 88-79 points. Credit must go to Chamberlin Ogu­chi who scored a total of 28 points, 4 assists. Olaseni Lawal scored 17 points and 11 rebounds. Al Farouk Aminu poured in 9 points with 4 assists while Ben Uzoh gave a good account of himself with 12 points.

Senegal’s fight was led by Gorgui Dieng who led the floor for his side with 20 points, 16 rebounds and Xane Dalmeida who scored 14 points and 11 rebounds.

The winner of the championship qualifies for the Rio 2016 Olym­pics, while the second and third position finish­ers will continue their quest for Olympic ticket in an Olympic qualify­ing tournament that will attract countries from Africa, Asia, Europe and America, at a venue to be decided by world bas­ketball governing body, FIBA.