NGR - World champion offers Nigeria stiff test

SENDAI (FIBA World Championship) - Nigeria goes into its most important basketball test in eight years on Saturday in Sendai, Japan, on Day One of the 2006 FIBA World Championship against defending champion Serbia & Montenegro shorn of a natural centre.

The absence of Olumide Oyedeji and Obinna Ekezie through off-the-court wrangling has robbed the Tigers of its most potent whelps, making Nigeria to enter the match disadvantaged.

Instead, Julius Nwosu, a forward, will step into the void to mitigate the absence of the duo. It will not be easy since a basketball team needs a natural centre and an effective point guard to succeed in the paint, where the fortune of a team is decided on the boards.

And at the highest level of the game, this dislocation will mean the other Tigers players have to simply be on fire to curtail the attack of their opponents, who have their own problems with the imminent separation of Montenegro from Serbia.

Key players rejected call-ups several months’ back. That gave Nigeria a hope that it would do well against the Europeans, who won the World Championship as a united nation four years ago in the United States. The nation has since split up and it showed in the feckless way the team played in the Olympic games two years ago in Greece.

On a positive note, Nigeria, coached by American Sam Vincent, seems to have solved the point problem that glaringly hampered its African Championship outing in Algeria last year. Ibrahim Badmus is said to have matured in ball sense, while Josh Akogun and Aloysius Anangonye will also fill in at point.

Nigerias strength lies in the small guard position, where Ime Udoka, the new captain, and Chamberlain Oguchi will operate. In the frontcourt, watch out for Gabe Muoneke and Tunji Awojobi.

Senegal launches its offensive in Group D against Slovenia in Sapporo, while African champion Angola faces Panama in a Group B test in Hiroshima.

Other matches of interest include the opening fixture between Germany and the host Japan in Group B in Hiroshima, while the United States, which parades the likes of LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Elton Brand faces Puerto Rico in Sapporo.

By Olusegun Ikuesan & The Punch Newspaper
FIBA Correspondent in Nigeria