D’Tigress, Nigeria’s senior women basketball team, on Wednesday in Paris ended their impressive run at the 2024 Olympic Games on a losing note.
The Nigerian side, who have already made history as Africa’s first side either make or female to go beyond the group phase of the Olympic competition lost 74-88 to the U.S.
They stood toe-to-toe with the Americans in the opening minutes, only to soon start to fall behind as their opponents came out more forcefully.
The quarter-final game at the Berry Arena saw the Nigerian side losing 17-26, 16-26, 15-24 in the first three quarters.
By the time they resurged to win 26-12 in the fourth and final quarter, it was a little bit late in the day.
D’Tigress deserve commendation – Basketball fan
Nigeria’s National female basketball team, D’Tigress, deserved commendation for their feat in spite of their quarter-final exit at the Paris Olympics, a basketball fan, Adeyemi Owoseni, said in Lagos
Owoseni said this in an interview with NAN on Wednesday after D’Tigress’s 74-88 loss to the U S. women in Paris.
He also told NAN that the Nigerians played well to deserve some accolades in spite of their defeat in the quarter-finals.
”We played well but met a better side that brought their experience to bear. The girls should be proud of themselves for at least making it to the quarter-finals.
”We played better in the fourth quarter of the match to close the gap. We should be proud of the girls despite the loss,” Owoseni said.
Similarly, another basketball enthusiast, Mike Ajanaku, told NAN that though the Nigerians played well, they were not good enough to upstage the opposition.
”We failed to raise our game in the offensive and defensive rebounds and this caused us a lot of turnovers that we could have used well.
”I must commend the entire team despite the loss because they put up a good fight. They did well to close the gap and made the scorelines more respectable,” Ajanaku said.
U.S. advanced to the semi-finals with the win against D’Tigress who are out of the tournament in spite of their gallant efforts.
The scorelines was 17-26 in the first quarter as the U.S. team took complete control of the game making proper use of their superior size advantage over the Nigerians.
The U.S. team who are eight times gold medalists took the game beyond D’Tigress in the second and the third quarters by dominating all aspect of the game.
They recorded 16-26 and 15-24 to maintain their good grip but lost the final quarters to D’Tigress 26-12 when there was nothing to play for.
