Basketball: Silverbacks lose to Nigeria in World Cup qualifier

Uganda's national basketball team - the Silverbacks suffered a woeful 109-66 thumping by Nigeria in their opening game of the second round campaign of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 qualifiers in Lagos, Nigeria in the wee hours of Saturday.

Having lost all their first round group B games against Nigeria, Mali and Rwanda, the team took a weeks trip to Turkey were the they took part in the Istanbul tournament against some formidable teams, the Sliverbacks still looked a mismatch and a shadow of their opponents.

Many thought the camp had had an impact on the players and up their game but all was the same or even worse as the team was out-rebounded 61-49 and gave away the ball as many times as 22 compared to Nigeria's 15.

Nigeria started off the game in a blistering fashion as they raced to a 30-21 and 21-14 in the first and second quarter respectively as they forced the Ugandan team in a lot of errors and capitalised on their weaknesses compiling them to more doom and gloom by finishing the halftime up on 50-35.

And eventually they came back to take the third and last phase of the clash in an embarrassing manner winning both quarters by a resounding 58 points to the Sliverbacks 31.

Ikechukwu Somtochukwu Diogu had a game-high 24 points, seven rebounds and three assists as he led the Nigerian side to victory.

While Jordin Mayes led the three Sliverbacks players in double figures with a team-high 18 points, then Robinson Odoch Pong and Deng Gue John added 13 and 11 respectively .

Today Uganda will be back in action against Mali .

Friday result

Uganda 66-109 Nigeria

Today fixture

Uganda Vs Mali.

Reader's Comments

RELATED ARTICLES

LATEST STORIES