The South Sudan basketball national team | Credit | SSBA

South Sudan National Basketball team have lost their first game of the AfroBasket 2021 qualifiers hosted in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.

Coached by the Federation President Luol Deng, the team failed to replicate the performance they put up during Pre-Qualifiers in January in Nairobi, Kenya.

The team went down 76-56 points after the final quarter to Nigeria.

Like the game against Cape Vade, South Sudan started on a lower note going down 22-17 points in the first quarter.

Nigeria, the number one ranked team on the continent, dominated the second quarter – pulling up 24 points against South Sudan’s 12 points.

South Sudan improved her performance in the third quarter winning 20-15 points, though it was already too late to equal the point gap.

Nigeria wrapped up the game in final quarter when they won 15-07 points taking the day.

Speaking after the defeat, Luol Deng said he was pleased with the performance of the team despite a short notice from FIBA.

“As you know, we only took five days to prepare for this game. We had a late notice but we managed to assemble this team, and that kind of performance from them deserves credit.” Said Luol Deng.

When asked about his decisions to take up the coaching role of the team, Deng said he chose to coach the team on a short time basis for this qualifiers.

“Yeah. It’s defiantly difficult. I took this and jumped on as a coach because we had a short notice. I know I was not going to turn it down. We had five days to prepare but it not that I will remain the coach. In the future I will not be the coach,” Deng added.

South Sudan will be next in action on Saturday November 28th against Mali and Rwanda on Sunday 29 November.