Nigeria’s female basketball senior national team, D’Tigress’ coach, Rena Wakama, has already turned her focus on Thursday’s quarter-final fixture at the African Women’s Senior Basketball Championship in Cote d’Ivoire, saying they will build on lessons learnt from a scare by Mozambique.
Sports247 reports that Wakama reaffirmed the trust she has in her players’ ability to shine and issued a pledge that the team will avoid the same mistakes they made against Mozambique.
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Thursday’s game comes after D’Tigress got a massive scare on Monday, as they had to battle back to defeat Mozambique by a tight score of 60-55 in their second game at AfroBasket 2025, and Wakama admitted it was a learning point for them.
The amiable tactician, who was born in the United States of America and is currently a substantive assistant coach at the Chicago Sky, praised the Mozambicans for stretching her team to the limit.
The 30-year-old graduate of Western Carolina University eulogised, “All credit to Mozambique. They came out, and they punched us in the face. Huge credit to them. They are a well-coached team, and they played extremely hard.”
She then gave plaudits to the players for following her instructions and standing firm, as the defending champions kept alive their target of winning a fifth straight AfroBasket title.
Wakama declared: “I’m proud of my team for overcoming. A night like this happens, but we still won. At half time, I challenged my team to dig deep and make sure that we came out on top, and they did that.”
Sports247 gathered further that D’Tigress will now await the winner of Wednesday’s round of 16 clash between Cameroon and Angola to face the Nigerians in the quarter-finals on Thursday.
It would be another opportunity for Wakama’s side, who defeated Rwanda 92-45 in their first game, to gun for a fifth straight AfroBasket title and seventh overall.
