Nigeria’s senior women’s basketball team, D’Tigress, preparing for the 2017 Afro basket for Women in Bamako, Mali got a shocking result on Wednesday evening as they were beaten 71-55 by Raptors Basketball Club in a test game played in Lagos ahead of the competition.

The game which saw assistant coach Peter Ahmadu mixing both the America-based players with the home-based players clearly showed that there is still work to do before the commencement of the tournament.

The Technical Committee of the Nigeria Basketball Federation had organized the game for the team to be able to know how the players will function in match situations. The tournament which holds from August 18 to August 27 will see Nigeria facing Senegal, Egypt, Mozambique, Guinea and Congo in Group B.Coach Vincent led Nigeria to win the tournament for the first time in 2003 in Mozambique and successfully defended the title with Ayo Bakare as coach in 2005 in Abuja. 

Report by Miyen Akiri