D’Tigress’ Ezinne Kalu was included in the All-Star Five team of the just concluded FIBA Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Belgrade, Serbia, Completesports.com reports.
Kalu’s impressive performance for D’Tigress saw her listed in the team of the tournament which was published on FIBA’s official website.
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United States duo of A’ja Wilson and Nneka Ogwumike, Ana Dabovic and Leia Dongue of Mozambique are the other players who made up the All-Star team.
Commenting on the performances of each of the All-Star players, FIBA wrote on Kalu: “Nigeria will also be heading to Tokyo with Ezinne Kalu playing a key role for the reigning FIBA Women’s AfroBasket champions with 16.0 points and 4.3 assists having almost led her side to a memorable triumph over USA on the final day.”
D’Tigress almost caused an upset in their final qualifying game against world champion USA but eventually succumbed to 76-71 points on Sunday.
It was their second defeat at the qualifiers after they also narrowly lost to Serbia 70-63.
However they secured qualification for the Olympics after the United States beat Mozambique. D’Tigress had beaten Mozambique 85-51 in their opening game of the qualifiers.
By James Agberebi
2 Comments
How i wish Nneka was part of our team. Team naija with more confidence would have defeated the USA. I hope they work on that before the Olympics because i see us making a major statement at the games.
Basketball has come to stay in Nigeria.