SAN FRANCISCO, November 25, (THEWILL) – Mike Brown, head coach of Nigeria’s Basketball team D’Tigers, has named long-serving captain Ikechukwu Somtochukwu Diogu and point guard Benjamin Chukwukelo Uzoh in his 12-man roster for the 2021 Afrobasket qualifiers.
The Afrobasket qualifiers are scheduled to take place at the Kigali Arena from Wednesday, November 25 to Sunday, November 29.
In the course of the qualifiers, D’Tigers will battle South Sudan in their opening Group D campaign on Thursday, before taking on Mali and hosts Rwanda.
The 37-year-old experienced power forward Diogu, and co-captain Uzoh top the list of invited players selected by Brown. The others are Capital City Go-Go point guard, Ike Iroegbu; Orléans Loiret Basket power forward, Chima Moneke; BC Nevėžis shooting guard, Michael Gbinije; Baloncesto Fuenlabrada shooting guard, Obi Emegano and Kamza Basket point guard, Jordan Ogundiran.
To complete the team are POAK Athens power forward, Amanze Egezeke; Baloncesto Peñas Huesca centre, Emmanuel Omogbo; shooting guard, Ibe Agu, who plays for home-based side Civil Defenders; MBC Mykolaiv shooting guard, Keith Omoerah and Hapoel Be’er Sheva point guard, Caleb Agada.
However, the American coach dropped notable stars as the team is missing names as Stan Okoye, Ikechukwu Nwamu, Talib Zanna, Michael Eric, Tonye Jekiri, Rasheed Sulaimon, Festus Ezeli and Ekpe Udoh, all of whom had made the initial 20-man list for the championship.
Having arrived the Rwandan capital Kigali on Monday night, D’Tigers had their first team practice on Tuesday evening. This was after results of their COVID-19 tests returned negative.
This will be Brown’s first assignment with the Nigerian national team after he was announced as head coach in February. He replaced coach Alex Nwora, who took the team to the 2019 FIBA World Cup in China.
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Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.