The D’Tigress of Nigeria finished in eight place after losing to Canada 73-72 on Sunday at the FIBA Women Basketball World Cup in Tenerife, Spain.
The Nigerian team was hoping to erase the memories of its 84-62 point loss to France its first game in the 5-8
classification games on Saturday, but fell short to the Canadians in the last quarter of the epic encounter.
The Nigerian team lost the first quarter 21-17, but bounced back to win the second quarter 9-18 to the admiration of the fans. The third quarter ended 19-19 for a cumulative score of 49-54 in favour of the Nigerians. However, the Canadians bounced back strong in the final quarter to win 24-18 for a total score of 73-72 and confine the D’Tigress to eighth place.
Despite the loss, the Nigerian team has shown the world that it has come of age. The team defeated Turkey, Argentina and Greece on its way to the quarter finals before the US team halted its run.
However, facing France and Canada in the classification games may have been a tough one for the Nigerians after heavy mental and physical contests with better-rated opponents who they defeated along the way to their historic feat.
The loss of Aisha Mohammed to an ankle injury also limited her participation in the latter stages of the competition as she failed to take part in both classification games against France and Canada.
Point Guard Ezinne Kalu stated that the D’Tigress came into the game against Canada to finish 7th but the intensity of the game might have been too much for her and her teammates.
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“The game (against Canada) was very intense. We came out trying to compete for the 7th position, although we didn’t win today, I’m still happy. It’s nothing to be sad and down about. We made history coming this far so to take 8th place is just a blessing.
“It’s a great thing for both African teams to have done well in the tournament. It just goes to show that anything is possible and they can’t count us out. Before the tournament we were 37th in the world and now we finish 8th,” Kalu added.