Nigeria’s women national basketball team, D’Tigress, took a big step towards qualifying for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics after recording 85-51 points victory against Mozambique, in the qualifiers in Serbia on Thursday, Completesports.com reports.
On the night that all the 12 players on the roaster scored at least two points, Promise Amukamara was the one who led the team with 14 points, 5 rebounds, 5 steals and 3 assists.
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Rebound Queen, Evelyn Akhator picked up seven and scored nine points.
Team captain, Adaora Elonu had 10pts, four assists and three steals with 100% records from her two points attempts while Ezinne Kalu recorded 11 points and five assists.
Although, Mozambique started like a house on fire in the first quarter to lead Nigeria 19-18.
But heading into the second quarter it was all about D’Tigress stepped up its game with some solid defensive play and full court press to frustrate their fellow African opposition as they dominated the rest of the quarters, 23-9, 15-13, 19-10 to enjoy a 34 point victory.
Qualification will be officially guaranteed if USA beat Mozambique in the next group game on Saturday.
D’Tigress will return to the court on Saturday to face host Serbia.
By James Agberebi
9 Comments
Well Done Ladies!
Dear Mr. Editor, this article is very confusing. You say they have technically qualified. Why is that? Have they or have they not? Is this the same kind of technicality we used to defeat boko boys? We don’t want that one o. Please kindly explain to us what exactly is going on and stop feeding us such incomplete reports. Thank you.
@AMO I think the real problem started from why the basketball authorities designed the Qualifying process.. it’s just too long and cumbersome, so many stages involved, I mean, these D’Tigress players have won everything there is to be won on the continent on the Eve of an Olympics year; yet “they” say the girls STILL have to go through yet another round.
it’s just tiresome and worrying.. if they eventually don’t make it (which I doubt anyways going by current results); the IBBF should take all the flak
*sorry…. FIBA I meant, not IBBF pls
@For Real, the things you mentioned are things I had no idea about. It would have been nice if the article mentioned some of these facts. It’s not like Women’s basketball is something we follow closely so some background would have been helpful.
Thanks by the way.
Well @AMO, I’ve been closely following their stellar performances at both the last African Championships & the FIBA Women’s World Cup down to the current Qualifiers, so I think I should know a thing or two
The team hasn’t qualified but is sure to qualify unless a miracle happens.
As it stands, the USA qualified as the world champions, so the next two teams would qualify if the USA tops the group.
Nigeria already beat Mozambique by 34 points, so we are likely not to be bottom of the group because Mozambique would need to beat the USA and Serbia to qualify. The bottom line is that as long as we don’t lose by a record margin and Mozambique doesn’t win the USA and Serbia by record margins; then we have qualified.
Got it. Thanks.
Why will the US participate in the qualifying series again after qualifying as the world champ? FIBA I’d a confused body
In other word we have qualified already cos Mozambique cannot beat USA and that means qualification for our girls nice one