Nigerian basketball male teams paid dearly for errors they committed during their All African Games semi-final game against Egypt Wednesday night. And as they go into the bronze medal match today against Mali, Anthony Victor said such mistakes will not be repeated

Sunday night after beating Angola 74-65 in the final of the 2015 Afrobasket championship in Tunisia.

Following their success at the Afrobasket, Nigeria D’Tigers was tipped to win the gold, but that didn’t happen as the Egyptians ran away with a 61-60 win; a victory clinched in the last quarter of the game.

They had taken the lead in first quarter, but D’Tigers levelled up 34-34 points. With two minutes left for play, the African champions trailed 51-56, they were within an ear shot of victory, somehow, things did not go their way; a series of free throws awarded to the Egyptians sealed the fate of the Nigerian team.

“The game was fiercely contested and contests that usually go up and down are hard to win,” said Victor at the Games Village.

“No doubt we made a number of mistakes in a very tight game. Up till the last quarter we were still very much in it. Officiating also didn’t help matters.

“But that is gone now; we are aiming for the bronze. We have beaten Mali before and we will do it again.”

He refused to accept that it was because of the absence of Nigeria’s NBA stars that made D’Tigers to lose the match.

“That is not correct. In Tunisia didn’t the team lose a match to the hosts? We were just having a bad day at work.”