The Basketball Lions biggest challenger in the Group B is expected to be the defending champions Tunisia.
Cameroon’s senior men national basketball team will face Tunisia, Nigeria and Madagascar in the group stage of the 2025 African basketball championship, the Afrobasket. The 2007 vice African champions were handed the Group B pairing during last weekend’s draw of the forthcoming continental showdown scheduled to take place in Angola in August this year. Cameroonian basketball experts have described the pairing as a potentially difficult one for the Basketball Lions of Cameroon.
This, they say, is owing to the rich profile that the team’s three opponents will be bringing to the table during the tournament. The Basketball Lions biggest challenger in the Group B is expected to be the defending champions Tunisia. The North Africans have won the competition a mouthwatering three times. The team has emerged as winner in the last two editions of the event following their successes in the 2017 and 2021 series.
Another source of headache that is expected for the Basketball Lions team in the event is Nigeria. The West Africans were crowned winners in 2015 and remain a big basketball force on the African continent despite failing to make their mark in the region in the last 10 years and historically missing out on the 2024 Summer Olympic Games last year. Madagascar is the underdog in the pool. The East African nation will be making just its fourth appearance in the finals of the championship when it appears in the Angola 2025 tournament.
Despite the unimpressive background, the Madagascan team is still regarded as a team that must be reckoned with. This, pundits say, is owing to the fact that the outfit has built a rich profile for itself on the basketball scene in Africa in recent years despite not being able to do so at the senior level of the men’s 5×5 series like the forthcoming tournament. Last year, Madagascar was crowned African champion in both the men and women’s series of the 2024 3×3 African basketball championship following their exploits in Antananarivo.
Crucial Angola tourney
The 2025 African championship will take in three cities across Angola from August 12 to August 24, 2025. A total of 16 teams drawn in four pools of four teams each will compete in the tournament. The top-ranked team in each group will automatically qualify for the quarterfinal phase. The second and third-placed teams will progress to the round of 16 stages. Cameroon is chasing its first ever crown in the competition.
The closest the team has come to bagging the winners’ medal in the event was during the 2007 tournament in Angola where the Basketball Lions lost the final to the host. During the 2021 event, the team came through as one of the poorest outfits in the tournament. The side rounded up its journey in the Rwanda-hosted tournament in the first phase after finishing bottom of its group.
