Nigeria women’s national basketball team, D’Tigresses, on Tuesday, kept alive their hopes of playing at the Rio Olympics by beating South Korea 70-69 in the closest game so far at the 2016 FIBA Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament (WOQT).
The Scott Nnaji lead side who fell to Belarus by 71-60 points in their first game on Monday, needed to avoid defeat to stand any chance of advancing to the quarter-finals.
And the two-time African champions did exactly that at La Trocardière, Nantes, France, producing an unbelievable performance to edge the Asians by a single point.
After trailing for most of the contest, Ezinne Kalu hit a three-pointer with 4.6 seconds left to play to rescue Nigeria from a potential elimination.
Kalu converted a three-point play with 2:51 remaining but that was just the beginning of a stretch that saw four lead changes until the final buzzer sounded.
On the other hand, the Koreans paid the price for getting little production from their bench players who contributed only 11 points against Nigeria’s 37.
Apart from Kalu, Adara Elonu also contributed a game high of 6.5 rebounds, 16.0 efficiency and game points respectively.
Speaking after the game, Nnaji hailed the strength and courage of his team and had special words for star player, Kalu.
“It was a tough game for us because our lives depended on it,” Nnaji told FIBA.
“We needed to win to remain in the championship and having talked about it overnight; the players came out to play.
“The Korean team gave us a good fight and we didn’t believe what they did but Ezinne delivered us.”
The result means the D’Tigresses advance to the quarter-finals, while the Koreans are eliminated after two defeats.
