D’tigers: Nigeria fail to advance to semifinal after 61-66 loss to Scotland at Commonwealth Games

D'tigers have now lost against New Zealand, Canada, Australia and Scotland.

Nigeria’s men basketball team D’tigers on Tuesday, April 10 lost 61-66 to Scotland as both side played for a semifinal ticket at the ongoing 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia.

D’tigers were grouped alongside Austrailia, Canada, and New Zealand in the group stage of the games but failed to win against all three teams.

The rules of the games, however, gave D’tigers another chance to remain in the competition and another attempt at a medal.

The top two teams (Australia and New Zealand) from group A progressed to the semifinals, which meant the two lower teams from group A met the two top teams from group B.

D’tigers were therefore paired with Scotland while Canada were paired against England to determine the other two semifinal slots.

 

Nigeria however could not win the preliminary match as the Scotland team won three of the four quarters.

Scotland won the first quarter 23-17 and also the second quarter 17-12.

D'tigers however outscored their opponents in the third quarter as it ended 18-6, but were unable to sustain their lead going into the third quarter as it ended 20-15 in favour of the Scotland team.

Despite the defeat against Scotland, D’tigers are not the bottom placed team, as after the group stage fixtures the organizers have ranked Cameroun seventh, while India finished as eight in the classifications and both teams did not participate in the semi-final qualification stage.

The defeat means that D'tigers lost all their matches in the competition, after a heavy margin 110-65 loss to New Zealand in their opener, then a 82-67 loss to Canada in their second game and a 97-55 to Australia in their last group game.