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D'Tigress Of Nigeria
National Female Basketball Team
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Basketball in Nigeria
Women Basketball Champions
D'Tigress of Nigeria is the women's national basketball team comprising senior women basketballers who have achieved fame through their efforts at international and national basketball female tournaments.
The team was created under the administration of Nigeria Basketball Federation and was affiliated to the International Basketball Federation, Africa in the year 1964. They have participated in several tournaments which included the World's Women Cup, AfroBasket Women, Commonwealth Games, FIBA World Champion for Women and Summer Olympic games among others.
D'Tigeress in other words called Nigerian women's basketball team has won gold on several occasions; they won gold medal Africa in 2003, 2005 and 2017, bronze medal in 1997 and 2015. They have different uniforms for their matches viz home and away matches.
The team participated in basketball during the 2004 Summer Olympics and got qualified. During the finals, Nigerian women's basketball team finished 11th out of the 12 teams and at last defeated Korea to become the first ever African women's basketball team to win at Olympics game. That was the year they won an Olympic berth through a zone qualifying tournament and played with Australia, Brazil, Greece, Japan and Russia in Group A.
In 2005, they also participated in FIBA Africa Championship for Women and were qualified through their efforts and placed in Group C with the United States, China and Russia.
The qualification earned them an opportunity to compete for the 2006 FIBA Africa Championship though they were kicked-off in the 15/16th game by Senegal. They also participated in Commonwealth Games held in Melbourne, Australia during the same year.
Nigerian women's basketball team (D'Tigeress) was part of FIBA Africa Championship for Women in 2007 which could have qualified them for 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing but they lost the game to Mozambique during the quarterfinals.
The squads that represented Nigeria in the tournament included Chioma Udeaja, Funmilayo Ojelabi-Ogunleye, Olayinka Sanni, Charity Egenti, Mercy Okorie, Ekworomadu Joyce, Mfon Udoka, Ugochukwu Oha, Sefi Mojidi, Amaka Adibeli, Ononiwu Chisaokwu, and Marie Izidor Enjoli.
The team won the third position in the African Championship of 2015 among several other teams that participated in the tournament. Also during the FIBA Women’s 2017 Afrobasket Championship in Mali, Bamako they emerged African champions for the first time after 12 accumulated years. The winning award gains them qualification for the emerging World Cup billed to feature 16 countries.
