How Libyan Sadi shot down D’Tigers
Libyan basketball star Mohamed Sadi did everything right to inspire his country to a historic 89-82 overtime win over Nigeria, except he finished a rebound shy of a quadruple-double.
It was the first 2025 AfroBasket Qualifiers game decided in overtime.
Sadi, who has never shown his intentions of putting Libya’s name back on the African basketball map, scored, created shooting opportunities for others, disrupted Nigeria’s offense on several occasions, and put his body on the line against taller and heavier opponents when his team needed him to.
By the final buzzer, Sadi recorded a remarkable triple-double of 24 points, 12 assists and 10 steals, a feat never seen in the history of the AfroBasket Qualifiers. Sadi added 9 rebounds to his account.
Sofian Hamad came off the bench with an 18-point performance and Mohamed Buzgaiya added 15 points and 8 rebounds to help Libya to a promising start to the Qualifiers..
Mike Nuga was Nigeria’s go-to man leading all players in scoring with 31 points, but D’Tigers’ 27 turnovers proved costly to a team that landed in Tunisia only a few hours before their first Group B game.
Although Nigeria cut their 16-point deficit and took their first lead (74-72) in the fourth after a Nuga three-pointer, they wasted a superb opportunity to close the game out because of a combination of sloppy plays in the waning minutes of the game.
A shot clock violation with 45 seconds left defined Nigeria’s feat as Libya went on a 14-7 rampage in the remaining five minutes of the game to continue their unbeaten run in the AfroBasket qualifiers process.
Needless to say how impactful Sadi was. In addition to his remarkable triple-double, Sadi looked more like a coach on the floor, running offensive plays, and coordinating his team’s defensive tactics, but he wasn’t aware of his historical record.
”A quadruple? Why didn’t you tell me? I would have gone for it,” He asked this reporter with a grin seconds after the final buzzer.
Nigeria desperately needed everyone on the team to step up and contribute, but that wasn’t the case as Libya’s bench outscored Nigeria’s 22-4.
Heading to a competition of this magnitude with only nine players can be problematic, and that’s what Nigeria did, to make matters worse, D’Tigers has become the first top-10 team in Africa to lose a game to an unranked team.
“Nigerian players never gave up; they played us zone 1-2-2, and our shots weren’t falling. At the end of the fourth quarter we had to come back and we succeeded to in taking the game game to overtime.” - Libya head coach Fouad Chakra.
