Nigeria’s D’Tigress Tagged WNBA Team Of Africa
Coach Igor Kovasevic of Cote d’Ivoire has tagged the Nigerian national basketball teams and in particular D’Tigress as the NBA/WNBA teams of Africa.
The Serbian whose team lost a quarterfinals match (72-56) on Thursday, 23rd September to Nigeria at the ongoing 2021 Afrobasket for Women in Cameroon said the Nigerians of high standard that any opponent on the continent would like to emulate.
He said: “Nigeria is the NBA of Africa; the teams are of very high standard. We like what they are doing and how they have been able to build the teams high up so well. Their organisation is so good and we can see what they are doing.”
Kovasevic and his Ivorian ladies will continue their campaign in the classification matches holding on Friday in Yaoundé but he is proud of what his players were able to achieve.
“We lost to Nigeria and it is important to note that. Nigeria is not an easy team; I am satisfied with what we are able to do. We could have sat back there and let them blow us out with 40 points but we were able to prevent that. We played against a well organised team.
“My players need to be able encouraged. For them to get as high up like Nigeria or Senegal and Mali they need infrastructure. I came in from Zambia and they have better infrastructures. In Cote d’Ivoire we have a lot better players, talents abound but they have the environment to grow so big like Nigeria. These players need better environment.”
Kovasevic was alerted that countries like Nigeria have embarked on a lot of scouting over time to gather their best.
He responded “Scouting is good and it helps but the players need good setting to do very well”.
Nigeria’s D’Tigress have qualified for the semi-finals of the 2021 women’s AfroBasket, beating Ivory Coast 72-56 in their quarter-final match in Yaoundé on Thursday.
It is D’Tigress’ third consecutive semi-finals at the Afrobasket women’s Championships.
D’Tigress had a healthy 24 points lead going into the 4th quarter, but Ivory Coast almost fought their way back in the match, reducing the deficit to just 13 points with over four minutes left to play.