Ouster Of Nigeria's D'Tigers Is Devastating,Says Tijani Umar.

Nigeria Basketball Federation,NBBF, has regarded the ouster of Nigeria's D'Tigers at the quarter final of the just concluded Afrobasket in Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire, as devastating and a huge blow to the nation that is rated Africa's number three.

 Its President, Tijani Umar, told Sportsweight.blogspot,that he never expected that D'Tigers, a team which had the greatest number of injured basketball players in the competition could loss to Senegal at the quarter final as he explained  that wining the tournament would have been a final elevation of Nigeria in African basketball.

 While promising that the NBBF will get to root of the problems depriving the team to overwhelm Senegal, assured that NBBF would find a way to give the team a lift to qualify for 2015 edition of Afrobasket championship, stressing that NBBF technical committee is waiting for the team's technical crew report to ascertain what went wrong with the squad.

While hoping the D'Tigers will break the jinx of never wining the Afrobasket, Umar, said the defeat denied Nigeria from achieving its set objectives of featuring in the competition,stressing that the NBBF wanted to move away from the era of wining bronze medal to win the tournament and also wanted to book a ticket for the 2014 FIBA World Championship through the Afrobasket championship in Cote D'Ivoire.

He said injury was another factor that affected the team as Chamberline Oguchi, was not fielded on the advice of FIBA to enable the basketball player to resolve his outstanding crisis with his club,,adding that it was not the Federation's intension to give excuses over the team failure to scale through the quarter final hurdle.

The NBBF President,says Nigeria's D'Tigers alongside Tunisia, Cote D'Ivoire and ambitious Cameroon have learned bitter lessons from the Afrobasket. On the Afrobasket for Women, Umar, explained that the Federation had worthy expectations in the D'Tigress, having won the event in 2003, 2005, stressing that the poor outing of the D'Tigers would not affect the zeal of the Nigeria's D'Tigress to excel at the tournament.

D'Tigress, according to him, will camp in Abuja this weekend as they will depart Nigeria on Wednesday, 18th of September, 2013, for Mozambique, venue of the Afrobasket Championship.