Nigeria’s senior women’s basketball team, D’Tigress, endured a difficult campaign at the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup Qualifying Tournament in France, finishing with just two wins from five games after an 81–73 loss to Germany women’s national basketball team in their final match.
The defeat summed up a frustrating outing for the African champions, who struggled for consistency throughout the competition. Slow starts and lapses in key moments proved costly, as Nigeria failed to impose themselves against several opponents.
Against Germany, the team once again found themselves chasing the game after a sluggish opening, eventually losing momentum in the closing stages despite a competitive display.
Head coach Rena Wakama admitted her side’s recurring issues and pointed to areas needing improvement.
Another slow start, but luckily the other team had a slow start, so it was a rough start for both teams, a little sloppy game.
It ended up being competitive, that one was at our fingertips, but Germany is a great team, so we let that one get away from us in the third going into the fourth quarter.
We have to start games better, we have to make better decisions in critical moments. We have a lot of breakdowns. We just have to be a little bit focused.
This is a great week of games that we had. I know it has been rough but this is a great week of preparation for our team. Going into the World Cup, we will be better than we were this week.”
Guard Elizabeth Balogun also expressed disappointment while remaining optimistic about the team’s progress.
We tried to win, we came out hard, the goal was to win but we failed.
I’ll say we are getting better individually and as a team, watching our games and seeing where we could have gotten better and where we did better. The goal is to get better every day.”
Wakama also paid tribute to veteran Sarah Ogoke for her years of service to the team.
My standard is to play hard regardless. I’m sad that we couldn’t get that win for her. We thank her for her service in the last 15 years she’s been a part of this programme. She’s an exceptional leader and her legacy will live on.”
Despite the underwhelming results, the tournament offers valuable lessons for D’Tigress as they continue preparations for the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup.
