D’Tigress head coach Otis Hughley has invited 14 players for the last phase of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Qualification Tournament.
This was announced by the Nigeria Basketball Federation on their official Twitter handle.
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The last phase of the Olympic qualification tournament is billed for Belgrade, Serbia between 6th to 9th of February, 2020.
Top on the list players for D’Tigress by Hughley are Virtus Eirene, Ifunanya Ibekwe, Promise Amukamara (Charnay Basket Bourgogne SUD, France), Sarah Imovbioh (Basket Namur Capitale, Belgium) and Spain based Elo Edeferioka who plays for CB Vigo.
Others players include Victoria Macaulay, Atonye Nyingifa, Upe Atosu currently studying and playing for Butler University in the United States of America, Pallas Kunaiyi Akpannah Ezinne Kalu, Evelyn Akhator, Aisha Balarabe and Adaora Elonu.
While also other invited players are Louisville Uni guard, Elizabeth Balogun who was not released by her school for the pre-Olympic qualifying tournament and Murjanantu Musa who is based in Nigeria.
Musa emerged as the Zenith Bank Women League MVP after guiding Air Warriors to their first ever league title.
D’Tigress are grouped alongside host- Serbia, World Champions USA and Mozambique with two Olympic tickets up for grabs.
Their only appearance at the Olympic games was at the 2004 edition in Athens, Greece.
After earning their spot through a zone qualifying tournament D’Tigress played in Group A along with Australia, Brazil, Greece, Japan, and Russia.
The team lost all their group games but defeated Korea in the 11/12th place game, for a final finish of 11th out of 12 teams.
With this win, D’Tigress became the first women’s African basketball team to win a game at the Olympics.
They are the current African champions in the Afrobasket following their triumph at this year’s tournament.
They retained the title which they won in 2017 and have now emerged African champions four times.
