FIBA Africa 2013: Angola, Egypt vie for title Saturday

Nigeria entered the 2013 FIBA Africa event as the favorite, perhaps purely because of its NBA talent, but two surprising losses for Ike Diogu, Al-Farouq Aminu and company opened the door for other countries to earn bids to the 2014 FIBA World Cup in Spain.

Angola and Egypt won semifinal games to make that possibility a reality, while Cameroon and Nigeria finished on high notes in the fifth- and seventh-place games, respectively.

Half of the knockout stage bracket was set at the FIBA Africa tournament Saturday, as Group A and Group C finished up their portions of the round-robin stage. The action didn’t feature as much top talent as Sunday’s group play will, but the games were largely competitive as teams prepared for the knockout stage.

Cape Verde 65, Mozambique 53: Cape Verde finished second in Group C with the win over Mozambique. Neither team shot well from the field, but Cape Verde took advantage of its 47-37 rebounding edge to secure the victory.

Day 4 of the 2013 FIBA Africa Championship is in the books, with Groups B and D playing their second set of games on Friday. The round-robin portion of the tournament is for seeding purposes only, however, because all 16 teams participating automatically advance to the knockout round.

Let’s take a look at Friday’s action:

Friday’s action will be the second set of seeding games for teams in Groups B and D, but unfortunately doesn’t offer a lot of competitive pairings. All of Wednesday’s losers are playing that day’s winners and, unfortunately, that could mean a few blowouts are in the making.

Plus Nigeria’s just a fun team to watch.

The 2013 FIBA Africa Championship tournament is still in its infant stage. All 16 teams currently participating in round-robin group play advance to next week’s knockout tournament, regardless of their records. Thursday’s games are still going to be interesting, however, considering seeding implications are in play.

The only can’t-miss game on Thursday’s schedule features Senegal facing off against Cote d’Ivoire -- or the Ivory Coast, as those of us in America have come to call it. Senegal hasn’t won in the matchup since 2001, but both teams are pretty talented and could potentially advance to next year’s FIBA World Cup competition.