Nigeria lost 76-71 to the United States in the final Olympic qualifying match in Belgrade, Serbia yesterday. The Nigerians were leading the US 50-57 going into the final quarter of a very close game, but the USA fought back to overtake D'Tigress and win the game.

Both teams had already qualified for the Olympics before this game.

Brittney Griner (Phoenix Mercury/Baylor) led the USA offense with 18 points on 7-of-9 shooting from the field. Chelsea Gray (Los Angeles Sparks/Duke) added 12 points and a game-high seven assists, Nneka Ogwumike (Los Angeles Sparks/Stanford) added 11 points and Katie Lou Samuelson (Chicago Sky/Connecticut) tossed in 10 points, including a pair of critical fourth quarter 3-pointers.


The USA ran to a 9-2 lead to open the game, but Nigeria battled back and at the conclusion of the first quarter Nigeria held a 21-20 lead.

It was a dismal second quarter for the USA that almost did the Americans in. Outscored by Nigeria 19-6 in quarter two, Nigeria took a 40-26 lead to the locker room at halftime.

Struggling to find the bottom of the net in the second quarter, the USA made just 1-of-16 shots from the field during that span, while Nigeria made 9-of-15 attempts. Recording 13 turnovers in the first half, the Americans were outrebounded by a 25-15 margin, which included Nigeria enjoying a 10-5 advantage on the offensive glass.

“Their physicality sort of surprises you,” said USA's coach, Reeve, when talking about halftime adjustments. “As much as you talk about it, try to prepare for it, it’s different when you actually face it. So, we just had to adjust to that and simplify what we were doing offensively. In the second half we got ourselves into an offense that produced more paint touches. The way that they play on the inside, they fight around the post, and we got Brittney and Syl some easy catches.”

The third quarter saw the USA offense come to life, but every USA push was met by a push from Nigeria as well. A traditional three-point play from Ogwumike had the USA within five, 48-43, with 2:21 left in the third quarter, But Nigeria responded by outscoring the U.S. 9-7 in the final minutes to take a 57-50 lead into the fourth quarter.

Tied at 70, Wilson scored off a feed from Sue Bird (Seattle Storm/Connecticut) with 1:06 to play to push the red, white and blue ahead 72-70. Nigeria’s Atonye Nyingifaegia made one of two free throws to close the U.S. lead to one, 71-70, with 54 second to go, but Griner scored off an assist from Gray to cushion the USA lead to 74-71 with 41.4 seconds remaining.

Nigeria missed two would-be game-tying 3-point shots in the closing seconds, and the USA sealed the win with two free throws from Gray with 11 seconds to play.

The USA ended the night shooting 41.3 percent, compared to Nigeria hitting 40.9 percent of its shots. While Nigeria outrebounded the USA 43-36, the USA was fueled to the win by its bench, which outscored Nigeria’s bench 48-15.


Serbia defeated Mozambique 76-48 in the other game of the group.


Nneka Ogwumike of the USA was voted MVP of the qualifying tournament, and joining her on the five-member All-Tournament team was A’ja Wilson (Las Vegas Aces/South Carolina). Rounding the all-tourney squad were Ana Dabovic of Serbia, Leia Dongue of Mozambique and Eziinne Kalu of Nigeria.


Nigeria vs USA highlights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woENgAaBcDk

Nigeria vs USA post-game press conference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPgYMJGw7T0

Ok

not too bad

Good for the boys, if you watch it, you will commend them.


Very clean samsung S8plus for sell

Check profile for picture and contact


Very clean HP celeron is also available asking price 50k

una try, weldone

rank your business website on Google
chat up now

Before nko? We wan beat USA? basketball is USA, USA is BASKETBALL. they tried anyways even though most of those ladies up there were trained in the US as well

The result shows that its a tough game
Nneka Ogwumike played against Nigeria


congrats to both sides

That was really close. I think they tried

welldone guyz

.
The D’Tigress played an awesome game against the US...
Full-court press all game and held the US to only 6 points in the 2d quarter (an all-time low for the US).

Nigeria led for almost the entire game until very late (about 3 or 4 minutes left in the game), meeting every US run or comeback attempt with resilience and a run of their own. I really started to think they would pull this one out and grab a remarkable victory, but ultimately the strength in depth of the US told, as 2 of our key players fouled out in the final quarter (Adaora Elonu and Vicky McCaulay), together with some very questionable and dodgy refereeing calls (the most egregious when the score was 71-70).

CONGRATS to the ladies for qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics!
>

Nice one, very good, see den fine babes, no be den our footballer looking like stick, everything don stif .

Wow.. our girls have really improved. Losing by just 5 point margin to a great team like USA is really an improvement. Gone are the days they used to batter us by wide margins.

Congrats to our girls for making it to the Olympics

Okay...they tried sha but we need more from them.


Check my signature my people

Not like those super chicken

with buhari on the driving sit, gold medal will be impossible for any sport in Nigeria,that man carry lots of bad luck....

They have already qualified tho more of a formality game.

Not bad

I'm very proud of these Nigerian basketball team. They're true African Giants. If you can hold team USA to this type of score you're a champion. Period!

Congrats to the D'Tigeress. They put up a good show and just did enough to qualify. Also good to see that we are gradually closing in on USA gone are the days when they would have wooped our ass with a very scandalous scoreline. The girls just need to resume camping and we would have a good Olympic tournament.

With this score there is hope at the Olympics then.

Haywhysat:
Before nko? We wan beat USA? basketball is USA, USA is BASKETBALL. they tried anyways even though most of those ladies up there were trained in the US as well

USA didn't win last year world cup

Gradually we will get there.. I noticed a Nigerian name in the US team and funny enough she was the MVP and also had a lot of points on the board for team USA...our dead sports ministry and inability to adequately fund our athletes makes it easier for them to play for other nations thereby making ours to always fall short...imagine what her points would have added to ours..we would have won the GAME!!!! Its just a pity it keeps happening in all sports...the sports ministry needs to wake up and do the right thing for the athletes representing the flag of this nation

Our female basketballers probably don't even know what NIGERIA looks like. They are abroad baby girls.

For them to lose to USA with that margin means they stand a big big chance.

I must really commend the Nigeria basketball team. They tried with the almighty USA.

Well done to the Nigerian team.

They are no match, but they tried though.

They had one of ours playing against us on that US team. Cray.

Oh Nooooooo.

Not so much surprising tho.
USA is the best country in Basketball in the whole world.

Our girls gave a good account of themselves.

Both teams had already qualified for the Olympics before this game.

This is the koko!
Qualifications for the Olympic games is all that matters!!

UP NIGERIA!!