ALGIERS (Algeria) – Algeria’s chances of securing Africa’s only Zone 1 ticket to FIBA AfroCan 2023 have been severely compromised by a loss to Tunisia on Friday in Algiers.
Yacine Toumi was the man of the match, leading Tunisia to a 49-42 victory in the first of two matches against Algeria.
Toumi finished with nine points, while four other Tunisians – Oussama Marnaoui, Firas Lahiani, Yanis Pejoux and Ahmed Addami – contributed seven points each. Lahiani added 13 points to his tally.
Algeria opened the scoring with a 5-0 run, but that lead was short-lived as Tunisia regained control and led by 10 points (48-38) in the fourth quarter.
Tunisia entered the locker room with a 26-21 lead.
The game was so balanced that until the last five minutes it was impossible to predict a winner.
Despite the six changes of position, Tunisia proved to be more efficient and more determined to take the lead in this series of two matches.
“Tunisia got the better of us in terms of rebounds, especially in the last four minutes of the game,” Algerian coach Ahmed Bendjabou admitted in an interview with FIBA.basketball.
Algeria only managed 4 of their 28 three-point attempts and, to make matters worse, they finished 4 of 10 from the free-throw line.
Marahi Ramzi and Abdelhaki Hanna are Algeria’s leading scorers with seven points each, but the Algerians will need to devise a more sophisticated game plan to beat Tunisia in the second game on Sunday.
“We haven’t played warm-up matches since February and we struggled to execute our attacking game plan, especially when it comes to three-point shots,” Bendjabou said, before admitting his team was “poorly performing on the free-throw line”.
“We were good defensively, but our attack didn’t work. The scoreline shows how good our defense was,” Bendjabou said.
Both teams resume their FIBA AfroCan Qualifiers on Sunday June 25 in Algiers for the second and final game of the series.
The winner of the Zone 1 qualifiers will move into Group C of AfroCan 2023 alongside Morocco and Rwanda who won the Zone 5 qualifiers on Friday.
TO FOLLOW MATCH 2 BETWEEN ALGERIA AND TUNISIA, CLICK HERE.
FIBA
2023-06-23 21:53:29
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