Nigeria’s D’ Tigress defeated defending champions of the FIBA Women’s AfroBasket Championship Senegal 58-54 on Wednesday night, making it five wins in five games in Group B of the tournament in Bamako, Mali.
The Senegalese are the highest ranking African side in international women basketball at 17 with Nigeria ranked 42.
Both sides had already booked their places in the quarter-finals by virtue of winning their previous group matches prior to the game.
Nigeria triumphed in the first quarter 14-13, at half time D’ Tigress’ were ahead 34-26 and by the third quarter had ended the Nigerian girls were still flying higher than their opponents, leading 48-41 after Senegal gave them a scare by cutting the deficit to four points at some point in the quarter.
Evelyn Akhator continued her impressive performances with 15 points and 10 rebounds to her credit.
D’Tigress already beat Mozambique, Congo, Egypt, Guinea and Senegal in the 2017 championship, marking the Nigerians as favorites to win the title.
The Nigerian team will face-off with Ivory Coast in the quarter-finals on Friday.
Nigeria will most likely meet host, Mali, in the semi-final if the latter as expected, beats Egypt in the other quarter-final pairings.
