Nigeria’s D’ Tigress are through to the semifinal of the ongoing AfroBasket Women 2017 championship in Bamako, Mali with a well deserved 98-43 points victory over Cote d’ Ivoire.
Like has been the case in the team’s past three games, WNBA’s Evelyn Akhator was again at her best scoring 21 points 11 rebounds to lead the floor and followed by Ezinne Kalu with 17 points and 3 rebounds and home lad Nkechi Akashile 13 points 4 rebounds while Cote d’ Ivoire’s Bognini scored 11 points 3rebounds.
Head coach, Sam Vincent said playing against Ivory Coast was not easy task but remains glad his girls lived up to expectations. “Every team that faces D’Tigress come out for the kill. After winning six games, teams are now more aware of the threat posed by Nigeria, so they will want to come all out and achieve an upset.”
The team’s assistant coach, Ahmedu Peter said the technical team has studied and learnt from the mistakes made by the D’Tigress team to the 2015 edition under the tutelage of Scott Nnaji.
Ahmedu described the unexpected semifinal loss to Cameroon then as a big lesson.
“It’s a big lesson, and for anyone who says he does not learn from other people’s mistakes, then that means he does not want to move forward. We have seen the past and we have been able to study the past.
He said the present team will try to put its house in order to be able to learn from the past mistakes and get things corrected.
On the possibility of meeting hosts, Mali in the semifinals, the coach said, “I don’t like talking about a particular game that has not come. I always want to take one game at a time.