Nigeria’s men national team D’Tigers have been drawn in pot seven alongside Senegal, New Zealand and Angola ahead of the FIBA Men’s World Cup draw coming up on Saturday at the Shenzhen Bay Arena in China.
The FIBA World Cup will kick off from August 31 to September 15.
The 32 teams, which qualified for the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019, were drawn in eight pots of four teams each, based on the latest FIBA World Ranking for Men after the last window of qualifiers played in February.
Hosts, China, are in Pot 1 alongside the top three teams in the world: USA, Spain and France.
Pot 2 houses Serbia, Argentina, Lithuania and Greece while Russia, Australia, Brazil and Italy complete Pot 3.
Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Turkey and Venezuela are in Pot 4 while Germany, Czech, Poland and Iran are in Pot 5.
FIBA grouped Canada, Montenegro, Philippines and Korea in Pot 6. Japan, Jordan, Tunisia and the last African team to qualify, Ivory Coast make up teams in Pot 8.
According to the guidelines released by FIBA 24 hours before the event, Pots 1, 4, 5 and 8 will feed Groups A, C, E and G while Pots 2, 3, 6 and 7 will feed Groups B, D, F and H.
China will be placed in Group A with all their group matches to be played in Beijing and reigning world champions USA will be allocated to Group E in Shanghai.
Group B games will be played in Wuhan. The city of Guangzhou will host Group C while Foshan will play host to Group D team.
Group F teams will play in Nanjing, Group G in Shenzhen while Dongguan is the preferred city for Group H teams.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Basketball Federation will be represented at the draws by Lawal Dayo (Nigerian high-ranking embassy staff in China) and D’Tigers Team Manager Musa Adamu.
Credit: punchng.com
