By

Eniola Olatunji 

The D’Tigress of Nigeria at the Palais des Sports de Treichville in Ivory Coast on Saturday night roared into their fifth straight African finals consuming the stubborn Senegalese Lionesses75-68 in a tensed semifinal.

Nigeria had the game in grips earlier winning first quarter 22-17; narrowly took the 2nd quarter 21-20 but slumped 9-21 at the quarter to give Senegal a lead of 58-52 into the last quarter. Nigeria took the last quarter amazingly at 23-10.

The last quarter was very tensed as the two coaches using time outs and changes with other jokers tried to outwit themselves. Nigerian veteran coach and always the best dressed at tournaments, Rena Wakama calmly took the game from the Senegal Gaffer, Otis Hughley Jnr.

Senegal’s Cierrra Dallard was the most efficient player on the court scoring 27 ahead of Nigeria’s Amy Okonkwo; Cierria Dallard scored the highest individual points of 26 while Ezinne Kaho scored 19 points for Nigeria. Cierra Pallas Kunalyi-Akpanah of Nigeria shared highest Rebound scorer with Cierra Dallad 7 each. 

Match officials were Chueca Artadina from Spain; Zouzou Nadaye from Ivory Coast and Ahmed Aya Khaled of Egypt while the Match Commissioner was Olinga Joy Abooki.

Nigeria went into the semifinal against Senegal with a 9-5 win in their 14 previous meetings. On 19th December 2003 at the Preliminary round final, Nigeria won 62-55; on 22nd December 2005 also at the finals of the preliminary round, Senegal won 65-55; at the Afro Final of 28th December 2005 Nigeria won 64-57; at the world championship final qualifier of 17th September 2006 Senegal took it 66-61.

Then came the quarterfinal of Afro games of 16th October 2009 where Nigeria suffered the highest defeat from Senegal ever with 89-45; on 23rd September 2010 Senegal again won 86-62 in the preliminary round before dumping Nigeria 89-63 at the Afro semis of 1st October 2011. Nigeria won 75-64 at the group stages of AFRO games played on 28th September 2015 and at the group stages of 2017 played on 23rd August Nigeria won 58-54 before clearing Senegal 65-48 in the Continental final on 27th August that year.

Senegal again lost the African final to Nigeria 60-55 on 18th August 2019; won the continental semi against Senegal 73-63 on 24th September 2021; at the AFRO final of 6th August 2023 Nigeria spanked Senegal 84-74 and on 8th February 2024 Nigeria beat Senegal 72-65 at the Olympic qualifier group stages.

To get to the semifinal, Ivory Coast lost 60-66 to Senegal; Nigeria dazed Cameroon 83-47; Mali mauled Mozambique 86-68 and South Sudan narrowly piped Uganda 69-68.

Later tonight at 10pm Mali will face South Sudan in the 2nd semifinal. The 3rd place match will be tomorrow Sunday at 3:30 pm when Senegal will try to snatch 3rd place African Best while the final is at 7pm with Nigeria on track.

Already, the four semifinalists from the Ivory Coast play out Nigeria; Senegal; Mali and South Sudan have qualified for the world cup finals in Germany.

They will join 24 other teams in the world to determine world’s best. From the Americas will be Brazil; USA; Canada; Puerto Rico and Columbia. From Asian and Oceanic sector are Japan; China; Korea; Philippines; New Zealand and Australia while representing Europe will be hosts Germany; Czech Republic; Hungary; Belgium; France; Italy; Spain and Turkey. 

The world female Basketball finals will be in Berlin Germany from 4th to 13th September 2026.