D’Tigress of Nigeria have emerged winners of the 2017 FIBA Women’s AfroBasket Championship having defeated Senegal 65-48 points in the final of the tournament just concluded on Sunday in Bamako, Mali, Completesportsnigeria.com reports
The Nigerians, who defeated host nation Mali 48-47 points in the semi-final on Saturday to secure one of the two FIBA World Cup tickets available to Africa, started the final game on a bad note, losing the first quarter 12-18 points to the Senegalese who could not maintain the tempo in the second quarter.
D’Tigress however doubled their efforts in the second quarter to win the period with 21-10 points advantage to end the first half with 33-28 points.
The Nigerian ladies had defeated the Senegalese 58-54 points in one of their preliminary games and meeting them again looked an easy game for the coach Sam Vincent-led side.
The third quarter was clearly dominated by D’Tigress who recorded 15 points against seven points the Senegal could only score in the third quarter period.
Meanwhile, the last quarter seemed very tough for both sides as Nigeria led with 17 points margin against Senegal’s 13 points to end the game with 65-48 points in favour of D’Tigress.
To conclude the 2017 edition of the AfroBasket for Women in Bamako, Mali, Evelyn Akhator led Nigeria’s scorers with 13 points, captain Aisha Mohammed contributed seven rebounds while Adaora Elonu added four assists.
Vincent led Nigeria to win the 2003 and 2005 editions and also added the 2017 edition to make it his third title in the Championship.