Sports
Despite qualifying for World Cup, D’Tigers drop to 33rd in FIBA ranking
Nigeria’s national men’s basketball team, D’Tigers dropped a spot in the latest FIBA world ranking – an unexpected outcome, seeing that the team has been in fine form recently.
The 2017 Afrobasket runners-up were ranked 32nd in the world in March, before they maintained an unbeaten run in the 2019 FIBA World Cup African qualifiers and sealed their spot in the finals.
However, D’Tigers amassed 292.8 points in the ranking to retain their status as the number one team in Africa.
In second place on the continent are Angola, who moved up one spot from third to second after climbing from 37 to 36 in the world ranking.
They won all three of their matches in the 2019 FIBA World Cup African Qualifiers – on home soil in Luanda – to also seal their ticket to the finals in China.
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Senegal occupies the third position in Africa with 261.2 points to finish 39th in the world ranking.
Tunisia and Egypt maintained the fourth and fifth places on the continent as they are ranked 51st and 52nd respectively in the world.
Cameroon (58th in the world), Morocco (60th), Mali (67th) Cote D’ Ivoire (68th) and Central African Republic (35th) make up the top ten teams in Africa.
Meanwhile, USA remained the top team in the world, and are followed by Spain, France, Serbia and Argentina in the top five.
Lituania, Slovenia, Greece, Croatia, and Australia completed the top ten.
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