Mike Brown, the Head Coach of the senior national men’s basketball team, D’tigers on Monday, said that he was banking on his team’s offensive prowess at the ongoing Afrobasket Championship in Kigali, Rwanda, to progress in the tournament.
He said this at a news conference held in Kigala monitored through the Afti asket.ckn website.
Brown was asked about his team’s readiness to make progress in the competition, which is currently at the quarterfinals stage.
He expressed optimisms that the offensive prowess of the team would play a major role in how far the team could go starting with their first game against Mali on Wednesday.
“We have to be able to shoot the ball and defend. We have to transition, run and shoot the ball from the three point line at a high level. If we do, we will give ourselves a chance,” Brown said.
With a complete set of new players at his disposal for the Afrobasket campaign, he said that D’tigers will take it one game at a time as they continued to bond and improve as a team.
“One game at a time, we have a new team. None of these guys with the exception of one, played in the Afrobasket before (Jordan Ogundiran) and he did not really play.
Ibe Abu was here too, during the FIBA World Cup qualifiers, and he did not also play much.”
When asked how confident he was going into the tournament as a title challenger, he said that his philosophy was to take it one game at a time.
“We are young and we will just see whether we get better anytime we get on the floor and let’s see what happens,” he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria recalled that D’tiger’s edged pass Mali and Kenya in the group stage, but fell to Cote D’Ivoire in their final group game.
D’tigers would play against Uganda in the quarterfinals stage on Wednesday having placed second in their group encounters. (NAN)
