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By Agencies

With 3 wins in 4 games against Canada and Dominican Republic before beating Poland and Montenegro gave the D’tigers a sense of false belief heading into the first game against Russia according to NBBF chief, Engr Musa Kida.

Kida said the loss against Russia was avoidable which could have changed the complexion of their overall performance at the FIBA World Cup, inspite of second defeat to Argentina.

“Honestly was I thought was, the Russian game was ours, at least we supposed to have won and I think many factors contributed to the fact that we didn’t do well ”

“Principally, I think it’s the overconfident that the boys had, playing their friendlies against Canada and Dominican Republic and coming to win the peak championship here against countries that are playing in the World Cup”

“So coming to the World Cup, they felt too confident and thought they have won games before playing it and that contributed to the frame of mind and we paid dearly for it”.

However, D’Tigers bounced back to beat Korea Republic in their last Group B game to put themselves in contention for Tokyo 2020 Olympic ticket.