By

Eniola Olatunji

Nigeria on Wednesday night lost to eight times Olympic and defending Champions, The USA in the women’s Basketball game at the Bercy Arena in Paris France by 88-74 in the Paris Women’s Olympics game. The Nigerians finished on a very impressive and high level performance despite the loss. 

Although the Americans took the 3rd quarter 15-24 but the Nigerian performance in the 4th quarter was scintillating as DTigers took that 26-12.

Nigeria hustled greatly contesting every move but lost the first quarter 17-26. She was leading very well in the second quarter but the Americans were taller, physical and play more technically to earn the second quarter win from behind 16-26 total as at half time was Nigeria 33 USA 52. Both Ezine Kalu and Okoronkwo were playing fluid basketball but not enough to wrestle the second quarter victory before the teams went for half time.

The three officiating referees in the match, Viola Gyorgyi of Norway; Juan Fernandez of Argentina and Yann Viego Davidson of Madagascar were eagle eyed moderating the match well.

USA came from Group C having beaten Japan 102-76; beat Belgium 87-74 and slayed Germany 87-68.

Nigeria stunned highly rated Australia 75-62; lost to France 54-75 and ousted Canada 79-70 all in group B. Nigeria topped the 3rd place options to move to the quarterfinals with 5 points, Belgium and China had 4 points each but China went home because she had -1 when Belgium had 0. So Belgium and Nigeria moved forward.

Nigeria’s team, D’Tigress and her Yankee females met five times all won by USA. They met on 13th September 2006 at the World Championship for Women and Nigeria lost at the Preliminary round 46-79; on 28th September 2018 at the Women’s Basketball world Cup match in Spain, Nigeria lost at the quarterfinal 40-71; at the FIBA women Olympics qualifier in Belgrade on 9th February 2020 Nigeria upgraded but still lost 71-76; at another Olympic qualifier played on 27th July 2021 in a group meeting, Nigeria lost 72-81 and lastly at another Olympics Qualifier of 9th February 2024 Nigeria lost 46-100.

Nigeria ranked 12th in the world and no 1 in Africa has already made history as the first African team (male and female) to play at the Olympics quarterfinals. She has 3 appearances at Greece 2004 and Tokyo 2020 achieving the 11th position at each tournament. Nigerian women have six titles at the AfroBasketball tournaments having won in 2003, 2005 and four consecutive times in 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2023.  

The USA is the most successful country in Olympics Basketball as the men won 16 out of 19 Olympic tournaments and the women won 8 out of 10 tournaments with seven wins in a row from 1996 -2000. Argentina has also won the title once as well as Soviet Union and Yugoslavia which are no more now.

The USA women are the defending Champions at the Olympics (both male and female). In 2020 in Tokyo, USA beat Japan 90-75 at the finals; at 2016 Rio De Janeiro games she beat Spain 101-72 in the finals and at London Games in 2012 she forced France to her knees with 86-50 score. Just picking the last three victories.

In the three previous quarterfinal matches also played today, Wednesday Australia sent home Serbia 85-67 (19-26, 13-22, 16-24 and 19-13); Belgium was lucky to win Spain 79-66 (26-26, 11-22,12-19 and 17-12) and France beat Germany 78-67 (23-19, 22-14,21-16 and 18-22).