Former D’Tigers captain, Olumide Oyedeji, has expressed his displeasure at the running of the affairs of the Nigerian senior men’s basketball team, pending the 2019 FIBA World Cup in China, which is only a few months away.
Oyedeji, who captained the team to a historic Afrobasket win in Tunisia in 2015, believes it in very unprofessional of the technical team of D’Tigers to release a 44-man provisional list with barely two months to the global competition.
Head coach of the team, Alex Nwora, on June 27 released a list of 44 players list in preparation for the 2019 World Cup, scheduled to run from August 31 to September 15.
The Nigeria Basketball Federation has set aside July 7 for the opening of the camp in Buffalo, USA. D’Tigers are expected to play friendly games on July 20 and 22 against Dominican Republic and on July 26, a game between ex-NBA and Euro All Stars will end the first phase of the team’s pre-world-cup tuneup rounds.
According to Oyedeji, at this time the technical team should have already released a final list for the competition.
“…It is either you want to go there for a jamboree or you are just putting down the names. For me, dropping 44 names at this time is making me doubt the technical capabilities of the coaches.
“In the 44-man list, there are five home-based players and they are expected to be camped from July 7, we are not really sure they want them to be part of the team. Have they procured their visas? That is programming them to fail. When are they going to join up with the rest of the team.”
— Oyedeji
The second tuneup rounds, as revealed by the federation, will begin on July 29 with invited NBA players expected to join up with the rest of the team on August 5.
The team will be in Toronto to play Canada on August 10, in what could be their final preparatory game for the world cup.
The final list for the World Cup is expected to be released on August 12.
Featured Image Source: FIBA
Source: Brilla
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