D’Tigress made history yesterday by becoming the first African team to advance beyond the group stage at the Olympics.
In an impressive performance at the Paris 2024 Olympic Basketball Tournament, Nigeria’s women’s basketball team defeated Canada 79-70, marking the first time an African team, male or female, has reached the quarterfinals.
This win also highlights their achievement of securing two victories in a single Olympic tournament for the first time.
The game turned decisively in Nigeria’s favor with a stunning 11-0 run to start the second half, leaving Canada unable to recover and resulting in an early exit for the winless Canadian team.
Ezinne Kalu led with 21 points, while Elizabeth Balogun delivered a standout performance with 14 points, 4 rebounds, and 3 assists, choosing the perfect moment to shine.
Nigeria look like they could give absolutely anybody in the tournament a game right now. Their rugged defense was back after a lapse in their previous game against France. Physically they are a handful and anyone they come up against in the Quarter-Finals will have to play well to beat them. And that speaks volumes.
Canada simply didn’t have the firepower in this tournament to be successful and that was always the concern. In the end, it will be the margin and manner of this loss in particular that will feel uncomfortable for them and rub salt into the wounds of an early departure.
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Nigeria are now assured to take part in the quarter-finals of this 2024 Olympic tournament and will become the first team from Africa to reach that stage.
They have now won two of their three games in 2024 (v Australia and Canada), before this year, the teams from Africa tallied only one win in 37 games played in the Women’s tournament (already Nigeria, against South Korea in 2004).
Ezinne Kalu scored 21 points today, only Mfon Udoka (3 games in 2004) previously managed to score 20+ points with Nigeria in a game at the Olympics.
Promise Amukamara made five steals against Canada, the second-most for a player with a team from Africa in a game at the Olympics (Nigeria’s Maktabene Amachree, 6 v Greece in 2004).