Nigeria’s D’Tigress emerge Africa’s best in latest World ranking
Nigeria’s women basketball national team, D’Tigress have been ranked Africa’s best team in the latest FIBA ranking released on Friday.
A further breakdown of the ranking revealed that D’Tigress, who won the 2019 AfroBasketball Women’s Championship in Senegal earlier this year defeating the host country in the final, moved three places up in the latest ranking to 16th spot in the world.
⚠ With the new women’s competition system starting this month as the FIBA Women’s @Olympics Pre-Qualifying Tournaments prepare to get underway, an updated system launches for the FIBA World Ranking Women, presented by @Nike! 🔥
🔗 More info: https://t.co/KsQeYTh5hb pic.twitter.com/HIyvAfR4cX— FIBA (@FIBA) November 8, 2019
According to FIFA’s official website, D’Tigress garnered 329.2 points and are the only African team in the top 20.
FIBA further revealed has launched a new system for the FIBA World Ranking Women, presented by Nike, with with the FIBA Women’s Olympic Pre-Qualifying Tournaments in Africa, the Americas and Asia.
Moving from a competition-based system to a game-based one, the new ranking is based on results of games ranging from regional pre-qualifiers all the way to the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup Final, including the Olympics as well as FIBA Continental Cups.
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The previous ranking was purely competition-based and only considered the final standings of tournaments.
The four-times Afrobasket winners will aim to claim one of Africa’s two Olympic slots at the continent pre-qualifying tournament slated to hold in Mozambique from November 14-17.