D’Tigress of Nigeria Beat Senegal to retain Women’s Afrobasket title

Nigeria overcame a strong Senegal side to win the final of 2019 Women’s Afrobasket title.

Nigeria’s senior women’s basketball team D’Tigress are champions of Africa for a second consecutive time following their 60-55 win over Senegal in the final of the 2019 Women’s Afrobasket tournament.
D’Tigress beat host Senegal in a pulsating encounter played in a packed Dakar Arena on Sunday, August 18.

Having dominated and won all of their games of the 2019 Afrobasket tournament with wide margins, Senegal proved to be their toughest opponent.

Nigeria showed why they were favourites by leading in each of the first three quarters. It was in the fourth quarter that the Senegalese posed problems and even went into the lead themselves by a point.

The D’Tigress, however, showed their grit by bouncing back to win the game.

Three Nigerian players reached double figures in points scored in the game. Evelyn Akhator was the top scorer of the game with 14 points, nine rebounds. She was pivotal to D’Tigress’ win, making a steal with 21 seconds remaining and drawing a foul on the offense to get the bucket twice with free throws.

The win in the final now makes them the best women’s basketball team in Africa.

Before the final, Nigeria recorded big wins at the 2019 Women’s Afrobasketball tournament. They kicked off their campaign with a 79-46 win over Tunisia in the preliminary stages before 106-39 victory over Cameroon.

In the quarterfinals, they mauled DR Congo 79-46 before a 79-58 win over Mali in the semifinals.

D’Tigress’ win on Sunday night got a reaction from President Muhammadu Buhari who sent out a congratulatory message to the team.