Defending champions of the FIBA Africa Women’s AfroBasket Championship, Nigeria’s D’Tigress snatched their second win of this 2025 edition against Mozambique to qualify for the quarterfinals.

The victory in this one of the most anticipated matchups in women’s African basketball fixture, was  not without hard labour as Mozambique proved why they are one of the favorites for the title here in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.

For most of the 40 minutes, both teams traded blows. However, the reigning champions eventually prevailed, 60-55, advancing to the quarterfinals as Group D winners with a perfect 2-0 record. 

Credit is due to Nigeria, who brought their experience and desire to remain undefeated in 26 Women’s AfroBasket games dating back to 2015.

As the saying goes, big players step up in big moments, and that’s exactly what Ezinne Kalu, the 2019 Women’s AfroBasket Most Valuable Player (MVP), did.

She displayed all her skills to avoid what would have been an astonishing upset.

Ezinne Kanu gave everything she possibly could. She turned out Mozambique’s main disruptor, finishing with game-highs of 16 points and five steals.

Murjunatu Musa came out with a double-double of 12 points and 12 rebounds to join Kalu as Nigeria’s most productive assets.

Mozambique’s 20 turnovers created serious consequences, and Nigeria capitalised on 10 of them to score 12 points early on. They eventually scored 10 more points off of Mozambique’s turnovers.

Speaking after the epic clash, Amy Okonkwo stressed that the Mozambican team played basketball against the defending champions.

“Mozambique is a really good team. They’re well-coached, they ran their plays well, and they played beautifully together. It was a tough game, but we pulled it out and got the win. At first, they were playing harder than us, but we found our rhythm and started making defensive stops. I think that was the difference between us.” 

Earlier yesterday, Uganda Gazelles became the first team to qualify for this year’s Women’s AfroBasket quarterfinals after a spectacular show against record champions Senegal, in a 73-70 overtime victory. 

One of the most anticipated matchups at this year’s event, the clash, a revenge mission for Senegal who lost 85-83 to Uganda in in 2023 lived up to expectations with either side having moments of brilliance on the court. 

The Senegalese, however, could not muster the point to exact revenge as Uganda finish top of Group C for a direct ticket to the Last Eight.

The post D’Tigress Overcome Hard-fighting Mozambique to Qualify for Q’finals appeared first on THISDAYLIVE.