Women’s Basketball World Cup: Nigeria loses narrowly to Canada, finishes eighth

The Nigeria national women’s basketball team, D’Tigress, have finished in the eighth position at the 2018 FIBA Women’s World Cup.

Despite being ranked 34th before the World Cup in Spain, the Nigerian Ladies did the country and indeed the continent proud to finish in the eighth position.

In their final classification match on Sunday against Canada, D’Tigress lost 73-72 in a keenly contested game.

While it was the Canadians that won the first quarter of Sunday’s classification game 21-17, D’Tigress overpowered their opponent, 18-9 to lead by Half Time 35-30.

The third quarter was even at 19-19 but D’Tigress stuttered in the decisive final quarter as Canada got the upper hand; winning it 24-18 and 73-72 overall.

In this historic World Cup appearance, D’Tigress defeated Turkey (7th), Argentina (15th) and Greece (20th) before setting up a quarter-final clash with defending champions and world number 1, United States of America.

The Nigerian ladies will now shift focus to successfully defending their AfroBasket title in 2019.