Former Nigerian basketball player, Skambo Morrison has blamed the losses suffered by the D’Tigers at the ongoing Rio 2016 Olympics on poor motivation.
The reigning African champions opened the Rio Olympics with a 99-66 loss to Argentina and were losers again yesterday morning when they lost 89-80 to world number three, Lithuanian.
Speaking to Daily Trust after the match, the former D’Tigers player said the ministry of sports failed in its responsibility to ensure that the team prepared adequately for the games.
He said even as they were going to meet some of the best basketball playing nations in the world, the D’Tigers were starved of the necessary motivation.
Skambo noted that it will be very difficult for the team to recover from the two losses because already the little self-motivation they had going into the games has been sapped by the losses.
“I am not happy with the performance so far of the D’Tigers but I cannot say I do not know what is going on. It is easy to see that the team is suffering from poor motivation.
“The kind of preparation the team had before the games is not what will raise them above better prepared and motivated teams.
“When you are going up against the best, you must prepare sufficiently. As we talk, some of the issues that should have been settled long ago are still being discussed in Rio.
“It will be hard for them to rise up to the challenge but let’s wait and see what will happen in the remaining matches,” he said.
Skambo however praised the Nigeria Basketball Federation under Tijani Umar for ensuring that the D’Tigers played some crack pre-games friendly matches.
He said if the NBBF were not proactive, the situation would have been worse.
