Nigeria’s senior men’s basketball team, D’Tigers, has dropped four places in the latest FIBA ranking released on Thursday.
The team fell from 39th to 42nd position in the world rankings.
The former African champions now have 299.7 points and are ranked the sixth-best team in Africa. The top five African teams ahead of Nigeria are South Sudan, Côte d’Ivoire, Angola, Tunisia, and Egypt.
D’Tigers’ decline in the rankings is largely due to their failure to qualify for the recently concluded Paris 2024 Olympics Men’s Basketball Tournament, which was won by the USA. The Nigerian team missed out on the Olympics after failing to win a single match in the 2024 FIBA Olympic pre-qualification tournament held at Eko Convention Centre in Lagos, Nigeria.
At the tournament, D’Tigers lost to Mali and Senegal, finishing third in their group. This result ended their streak of four consecutive appearances at the Olympics, which began in 2012. The team had been ranked 16th in the world following the Rio 2016 Olympics.
In contrast, some other African teams made significant progress in the latest FIBA rankings. South Sudan, who performed impressively at the Paris 2024 Olympic basketball tournament by defeating Puerto Rico 90-79, made a remarkable leap from 34th to 23rd in the world rankings. This was the only double-digit move among the top 50 teams.
Cameroon also moved up five places to 64th, while Côte d’Ivoire is now the highest-ranked African team at 31st, followed closely by Angola at 32nd.
Meanwhile, the USA, who secured the gold medal at the Paris 2024 Olympics, continues to hold the top spot in the FIBA rankings. Serbia has moved up to second place, overtaking Germany.
