D’Tigress To Face Mozambique In Afrobasket Q/Final

Nigeria’s female national basketball team, D’Tigress will today in Yaounde Cameroon take on Mozambique for a place in tomorrow’s semi finals at the ongoing Afro Basket Championship.

Joyce Ekworomadu led D’Tigress with a game-best 20 points, while Odelia Mafanela and Deolinda Ngulela combined for 34 Mozambique points.

Reports have it that the Mozambique ladies arrived in Yaounde with a depleted squad and it showed as their bench contributed only five points against Nigeria’s 28.

In a game in which Nigeria led right from the very first quarter, the D’Tigress grabbed their third consecutive win in the tournament to leapfrog Angola on top of the table in Group B.

Ndidi Madu, made a game-high 13 rebounds later told FIBA.com: “It was a tough game for us”.

Victory for the girls will also see them face Group A’s fourth-placed team, either Mozambique or Gabon, in Thursday’s quarter-finals.

Group A leaders, Cameroon will face Egypt in the last eight, while Gabon lock horns with Angola. We didn’t do a good of job rebounding.

Algeria’s marauding play threatened to expose Nigeria’s perimeter defence as they reaped 15 points from the quarter, but the West Africans regrouped in time to clinch their fourth straight win.

The team coached by Scott Nnaji will depend on their highest scoring players, Adaora Elonu, Nkechi Akashili, and captain Helen Ogunjimi, who have scored 70, 50 and 49 points respectively in the tournament.