Nigeria Announces Basketball Squad To Face Team USA

The Nigerian Olympic basketball team was announced today.

The Nigerian team, D’ Tigers, is led by former NBA big man Ike Diogu, who paced the team with 14.8 points per game at London 2012, where Nigerian went 1-4 and failed to advance out of group play.

Portland Trail Blazers big men, Al-Farouq Aminu and Festus Ezeli are also missing from the roster.

Aminu reportedly withdrew due to issues with the Nigerian Basketball Federation, while it was previously reported Ezeli would not play due to the federation not reaching an agreement with the Blazers on insurance of his NBA contract.

However, the team does include Aminu’s older brother, Alade Aminu, former NBA point guard Ben Uzoh and Detroit Pistons second-round draft pick Michael Gbinije.

NC State v Syracuse
Gbinije

Gbinije will play against his former coaches when Nigeria and Team USA play at the Toyota Center, Houston, USA.

He was a key contributor last summer to Nigeria’s ability to win the AfroBasket tournament and its automatic ticket to the Rio Olympics.

DTigers-win-Afrobasket-2015

The game will be beamed live by Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) at 01:00am Nigerian time on Tuesday.

It will also be streamed live on the USA Basketball or NBA Facebook pages.

Nigeria opens group play in Rio against Argentina on Sunday.

The team is coached by Vermont’s Will Voigt