Women’s Afrobasket: Foreign-Based Stars Failed D’Tigress —Nnaji

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The overreliance on foreign-based Nigerian basketball players was the reason Nigeria’s female team, D’Tigress fumbled at the just concluded Mozambique 2013 FIBA Afrobasket championship, this was the stand of coach of team, Scot Nnaji.

Nigeria’s D’ Tigress lost their quarterfinal match 74-77 to hosts, Mozambique, to crash out of the tournament.

The Nigerian female team had earlier defeated Angola, Mali and Cameroon at the group stage of the tournament, which dunked off on 20 September. The team managed to secure two wins out of five matches played in the group stage.

The wins were recorded against Kenya and Cape Verde, while they lost to Angola, Cameroon and Mali, before crashing out in the quarterfinal against Mozambique.

Nnaji said that the country’s abysmal performance in the continental basketball competitions would continue except the Nigeria Basketball Federation, NBBF, returns to the grassroots.

He stated further that there is no way D’Tigress can rub shoulders with their counterparts around the world until there is a robust female basketball league in the country.

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According to him, “it wasn’t a bad performance for the D’Tigress. We went to Mozambique to prove a point but my grouse is that we can’t continue to rely on foreign-based players if we want to succeed. Most of the players we took to Mozambique were players that combining education and basketball at their different bases abroad. The only way we can make headway in the future is for us to build a homegrown team.”

Meanwhile, Tijani Umar, the President of the NBBF blamed lack of preparation and poor funding for the poor showing of the team.

Umar said Nigeria could go places with basketball if adequate funds were provided to carry out the federation’s developmental plans.

“I want people to understand that you can only reap what you sow; we must begin to invest in the long-term.

“It is not easy for D’ Tigress, which is always haphazardly brought together to represent this country, to be at its peak, “These girls delivered good basketball in the latter part of this tournament that if they had done it earlier, they would have won the trophy,” Umar argued.

—Adebobola Alawode

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