Huge statistics with Nigeria’s female basketball national team, D’Tigress, have been cited as factors that powered a summer transfer for Elizabeth Balogun to the New York Liberty in the United States of America, Sports247 reports.
Balogun’s long line of achievements with D’Tigress were in the spotlight, as the New York-based Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) outfit announced they have hooked the versatile forward on a developmental player contract.
It marks a return to WNBA action for Balogun, who played all of last season in France, then showed her intent to resurface in God’s Own Country with a pre-season stint at Toronto Tempo, with which she netted a total of 18 points across two appearances.
New York Liberty will now expect more from the 25-year-old 6-1 forward, who averaged 12.3 points, 6.3 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks per game in 17 appearances for Landerneau BC last season in the French LFB.
A statement on the WNBA club’s website noted, “Balogun led Nigeria to gold medals at the 2023 and 2025 FIBA Women’s AfroBasket tournaments, and also appeared in four games for D’Tigress at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“In five matches for Nigeria at the 2026 FIBA World Cup Qualifying Tournament, she recorded averages of 10.6 points, 3.4 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.0 blocks per game while shooting 36 percent from long range on 5.0 3-point attempts per game.”
Sports247 gathered further that, in a collegiate career that ran from 2018 to 2023, Balogun enacted averages of 9.5 points, 4.6 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 1.0 steals and 1.1 blocks in 24.4 minutes per game over3 150 appearances that included 123 starts.
Balogun spent her final two seasons at Duke University from 2021 to 2023 and led the institution’s team in rebounds per game (5.2), while ranking second in scoring with 10.2 points per game in 2022/2023; before which she spent two years at Louisville.
During her time at Lousiville, 2019 to 2021, Balogun helped the Cardinals win back-to-back ACC Regular Season Championship titles and was named to the Cheryl Miller Award Watch List as a junior.
She played her freshman season at Georgia Tech and was named 2018/2019 ACC Rookie of the Year, after averaging 14.6 points, 5.1 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 1.6 and 1.1 blocks in 30 games for The Yellow Jackets, long after she transferred directly from Lagos to the US.
The guard/forward, who will clock 26 on September 9th, started at eighth grade with Hamilton Heights Christian Academy in Tennessee, USA, where she got 15.1 points, 4.6 rebounds, 2.7 blocks, and 2.1 assists to make the All-USA Girls Basketball First Team at the end of high school.
Balogun, the second of three children, was born in Lagos, but her mother, Justina, died of breast cancer before the star moved to America, while her dad, Mark, resides in Nigeria, where he is a policeman and basketball coach.
