Nigeria’s senior women’s national team, D’Tigress, started their campaign at the Afrobasket for Women with an emphatic 80-69 points win over Mozambique in Bamako, Mali.
The head coach, Sam Vincent, in a business-like fashion opted for Ogoke Sarah, Elonu Adaora, Madu Ndidi, Akhator Evelyn and Kalu Ezinne in the first quarter of the tie.
This immediately paid off as Evelyn who currently plies her trade in the Women National Basketball Association (WNBA) with Dallas Wings opened her account with two points after she was fouled in the early seconds of the game.
The Nigerian side led by Adaora dominated with 17points and 7 rebounds bringing their experience to bare against Mozambique.
Despite the duo of Dongue Leia scoring 19 points with 5 rebounds and Cossa Anabela weighing in with 13 points, D’Tigress trio of Ogoke with 11 points, Akhator with 13 points and Ezinne with 16 all weighed in with double digits to ease the work load on Adaora on their way to record their first win of the tournament.
With a total of 7 rebounds, team captain, Aisha Mohammed led the rebound table and closely followed by Adaora and Akhator with 6 rebounds each.
Speaking at the post match conference, D’Tigress handler, Vincent said, it was important and good for the team’s psyche to win their first game of the tournament irrespective of the margin.
“I think for our first game, it’s good to get the win. I don’t particularly think we played all that well. We are not really a big team, so we gave up a lot of rebounds, they scored pretty easy on the inside but I thought the second half, we fought a little bit harder, did a little bit better on the boards and we were able to make some shots on the outside.”
Ahead of the team’s next game against the Democratic Republic of Congo, Vincent said, “We’ve got a group that is committed to playing hard, playing together and trying to win. What we don’t have is a lot of size and so, we are scrappy, we are going to play hard, we are going to see if we can get out and run and I think this is going to be a fantastic tournament for these ladies that are playing.”
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