Sterling, Colourful D’Tigress Brightens Nigeria’s Basketball Fortunes

The Paris 2024 Olympics is rounding off and we can all agree that the D’Tigress had a good outing. They indeed add brighter colours to the game many people love. We can say that anyone arguing about this probably knows little or nothing about the status of the four teams they faced in France and probably very minimal knowledge of the game of basketball at global level.

D’Tigress Coach, Rena Wakama practically summarised the outing for the greatest basketball team in Africa when she spoke soon after the game against Team USA in Paris.

Coach Rena told reporters at the Olympics, “The future is bright but we’ve got to invest in us; okay?

“We’ve got to give these girls and other girls the resources and the support for them to be able to get to the podium and get a medal. We’re capable of it; we have the talent. Every one of them is Nigerian.”

And then she added, “We didn’t have to get anybody from outside like some other teams. They are all Nigerians born and raised by Nigerian parents but still we have to invest in the future and invest in sports to be able to compete better.”

When the Nigerian ladies defeated Canada to reach the quarterfinals, there were a whole lot of records set.

It became the first time in the history of the Olympics that an African team (men or women) would get to that stage. It was the first time for a team led by an African coach and of course the first for an African woman.

Rena Wakama became the coach of Nigeria last year. Her arrival was not with a fanfare but welcomed by criticism from some people seen as very knowledgeable in Nigerian and world basketball. The opposition said amongst other things that she was too young (32) and inexperienced to lead a team that had won the African cup three straight times. They said she did not play basketball to very top level like the Olympics or World Cup and in one sentence, that “she was not qualified.”

But in the first ever interview she had with the Nigerian media and done by this writer, Rena famously responded to her critics this way, “God does not call the qualified; He qualifies the called.”

This was just before she met her players. Since then she has gone on to win the African cup, qualified the team for the Olympics and became the first to reach the quarterfinals.

The original aspersions cast on Coach Rena also meant that D’Tigress were getting less belief from some quarters. It was a simple mathematics. If the head is weak and not qualified, then the entire team had to be weak. The ladies arrived at the African competition in Kigali last year with what arguably became a Nigeria Team B after the turmoil that rocked the team forced the Nigeria Basketball Federation under Musa Kida to completely rebuild the team. Some of their opponents called them Team C before their tip off. When the competition began, it became obvious that D’Tigress had been touched by their tails.

At the Paris Olympics they fell into a group that had Australia (world number 3) hosts France and number 5 with Canada, former champions. This condemned them, on paper, to participate and return home.

They could not get the kind of attention enjoyed by the footballers, the Super Falcons but they are now the name on every Nigerian lip.

They lost the quarterfinal game match to the USA at 88-74 in a match many thought would be a blow out. The Nigerian ladies have clearly crossed from being just African champions to a world-class team. They achieved a similar feat at the 2018 World Cup.

It is now left for the NBBF to leverage on the performance of D’Tigress for the betterment of Nigerian basketball.

The activities in France almost drowned the African Under-18 qualifying competition which was held at the same period in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. The Nigerian boys and girls swept the single slot for each category. The NBBF made it clear they don’t want to leave any vacuum with the senior teams as players in those teams age and retire.

The vice chairman of the Youth Committee on the NBBF Board Ugo Udezue who led the team to Abidjan says, “The boys and girls played with lot of intensity and much credit to the coaches and staff.

“Also a lot of credit goes to the NBBF President, Musa Kida and the Board and all those that contributed far and wide to make this a successful outing. Special thanks to those that volunteered their time and effort to make this an incredible experience for Nigerian Basketball.”

The African final where the world competition reps would be selected will hold in South Africa by the first week of September.

Training would soon commence again in Lagos for these youths as they work to keep Nigeria at world level continues. As Coach Rena said, the future is truly bright if Nigeria Basketball works at.