Wednesday

Friendly game

Nigeria Vs Rwanda 7pm

The national men’s senior basketball team will this evening take on continental powerhouse and hosts Nigeria in their final warm-up game ahead of the second round of the 2019 FIBA World Cup African Qualifiers that start Friday.

Following a low key training camp that did not involve any friendly games, Vladimir Bosnjak’s team left the country on Monday morning aboard a RwandAir flight bound for Lagos to try to play at least one warm-up game before starting their quest for World Cup ticket.

The game gets underway at 7pm CAT, at the Indoor Sports Hall in Lagos.

Rwanda is in the same Group ‘F’ with Nigeria, along with the Central African Republic (CAR), Cote d’Ivoire, Mali and Senegal.

Rwanda progressed to second round qualifiers as Group B first runners-up, behind leaders Nigeria, while Mali advanced as second runners-up from the group.

In the first round, Rwanda lost to Nigeria twice, 53-108 and 70-111.

All the first round results will be carried forward to the second round and teams from the same group in the first round will not meet again, meaning that Rwanda will only play teams that came from Group D namely; Senegal, CAR and Cote d’Ivoire.

As per the first round results, Nigeria lead Group F with 12 points followed by Senegal with 11 points, while Central African Republic and Rwanda complete top four with nine points each.

Cote d’Ivoire and Mali are fifth and sixth, respectively, with eight points apiece.

In the meantime, Rwanda face Senegal, this Friday, in the opener on the three-day qualifiers tournament before taking on Côte d’Ivoire the following day and wrapping up the fourth window games with a clash against Central African Republic on Sunday.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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