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Rabat – Nigeria made history on Saturday night, becoming the first African nation to beat the US men’s basketball team, 90-87.
The game, held at the Mandalay Bay Arena in Las Vegas, is the first of five exhibition matches for the defending gold medalists leading up to the Tokyo Olympics.
Nigeria, led by Golden State Warriors assistant Mike Brown, has eight current NBA players on its roster including KZ Okpala, Precious Achiuwa, and Gabe Vincent who all play for the Miami Heat, Miye Oni of the Utah Jazz, Josh Okogie of the Minnesota Timberwolves, and Sacramento Kings’ Chimezie Metu.
Team USA’s All NBA squad was led by starting five, Kevin Durant of the Brooklyn Nets, Washington Wizards’s Bradley Beal, Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics, and Bam Adebayo of the Miami Heat.
Although the US side was missing three players, who are playing in the ongoing NBA Finals series, credit should be given to the Nigerian Side, as they capitalized on nearly half of its 40 3-point shots as well as outshining the Americans in rebounds.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>.<a href=”https://twitter.com/KDTrey5?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@KDTrey5</a> meet <a href=”https://twitter.com/PreciousAchiuwa?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@PreciousAchiuwa</a><br><br>❌❌❌ <a href=”https://t.co/osX0sx9QXk”>pic.twitter.com/osX0sx9QXk</a></p>— D’Tigers | Nigeria Basketball (@NigeriaBasket) <a href=”https://twitter.com/NigeriaBasket/status/1414023386573852673?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>July 11, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
Nigeria has lost to the American side twice before, 9 years ago at the 2012 London Olympics in which the US defeated Nigeria 156-73, the biggest defeat in men’s olympic basketball history, as well as in an exhibition game four years after, by 44 points.
Coach Mike Brown told reporters, “I don’t think any African team has been able to beat USA Basketball in an exhibition game or a real game … We’re trying to get a little bit of momentum for Nigeria and for the continent of Africa.”
In a statement from US head coach Gregg Popovich, he stated “I’m kind of glad it happened,” before adding, “I thought that the Nigerian team played very physically, did a great job in that regard and knocked down a lot of 3s.”
This defeat is only the 3rd exhibition loss for Team USA since 1992, bringing their exhibition record to 54-3.
The US is set to play #3 ranked Australia in an exhibition on Monday, having lost a friendly match to the team in 2019.
