September 27, (THEWILL) – Nigeria’s D’Tigress defeated their Malian opponents on Sunday to lift the AfroBasket trophy for the third consecutive time and in emphatic fashion 70-59 to stamp the authority of their dominance in female basketball on the continent with their “three peat” victory.
Such has been their dominance that to pinpoint the last time any continental side was able to get a win against Nigeria’s senior women’s national basketball team, the effort will require going as far back as six years ago, in 2015.
Between that time and September 2021, the unflustered team won two AfroBasket titles, qualified for the Olympics and booked their slot for the 2022 FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup in Sydney, Australia.
Against Mali on Sunday, the Otis Hughley Jr-coached female team were on a mission to make it three AfroBasket titles out of three and were prepared to make sure nothing, not even the hard-working Malians stood in the way of that objective.
D’Tigress took the challenge to the Malians from the start, exchanging brilliantly and taking to the rim with such frequency that they pushed ahead by six points with 2:42 mins left in the first quarter. The score was 17-11 in Nigeria’s favour and the final was truly looking positively favourable for D’Tigress when Amy Okonkwo stretched the lead to 11 with a massive three-pointer.
Mali attempted to seize the initiative in the second period while taking D’Tigress on the break. They closed down the points gap so quickly that coach Hughley Jr had to call for a timeout. The 2nd quarter was not going according to plan and the coach took advantage of the break to arrest the slide.
The game improved only ever so slightly but Mali still endeavoured to win the half 13-9. The half time allowed coach Hughley Jr to address the shortcomings in full.
Having that well sorted, D’Tigress returned to their early form and the gap began to lengthen again. The Nigerian ladies took advantage of turnovers to maintain possession and punish the error-prone Malians, with the scrappy second quarter completely behind them. It ended 28-14 in the third quarter in D’Tigress’ favour.
The fourth quarter was a much tougher affair and the Malians were more precise in their two-pointers, enough to finish the final quarter with a respectable 10-point lead, 21-11. But, it was too little too late for it to have an impact on the overall score because the D’Tigress had done enough in the earlier three quarters to take a deserved victory.
It ended 70-59 for the Nigerian team and they were once again Champions of Africa for the third straight time, remaining unbeaten and undefeated since October 2, 2015. It was also their fifth continental title and makes them Africa’s second most successful side behind Senegal who have 11 titles.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
