By Akinwale Kasali
When the draw for the 2022 Women FIBA World Cup was about to take place in Australia, Basketball Pundits and enthusiast had predicted that reigning African Champions, D’ Tigress of Nigeria, would have a fair draw. Sadly, the Nigerian ladies were drawn alongside host nation, Australia, Canada, France, Serbia and Japan in Group B.
The Group has been tagged as a ‘Group of Death’, with the African team aiming to come tops of the Group.
Though the D’Tigress defeated France in the playoffs, and are not new to the Europeans, they will be aiming to scale the hurdle of the other teams in the Group.
The FIBA Women’s World Cup Draw which took place on the shores of Sydney on Thursday will see the African queens currently ranked 14th in the world begins her campaign away to Japan on matchday one, on September 22nd .
Nigeria’s other games are against host Australia on September 23rd, then France on 24th before facing Serbia and Canada on the 26th and 27th respectively.
FIBA’s flagship women’s competition later this year have in Group A Team USA, China, Korea, China, Korea, Bosnia & Herzegovina and a country yet to be announced following the expulsion of Russia from all FIBA activities.
FIBA’s Central Board will decide in due course which team from the Washington/Santo Domingo Qualifying Tournament that will participate in the Women’s World Cup later this year.
The draw was performed by FIBA Hall of Famer Michele Timms, joined by other Australian legends of the game, FIBA’s Women’s Basketball World Cup 2022 Event Ambassador Lauren Jackson and former Boomer Shane Heal.
D’Tigress came through a qualifying group that had Mali, France and China with two wins against Mali and France, and a defeat to China.
D’Tigress has qualified for the World Cup for only the third time ever, with their quarter-finals defeat in Spain in 2018 their best-ever result in the competition.
Reactions has how we trailed the FIBA World Cup draws over the possible performance of the Nigerian ladies in the tournament.
The President of NBBF Engr Musa kida has expressed optimism that the Nigerian D’Tigress will make Nigeria proud as they were paired with France and Australia in the forthcoming World cup holding in September this year.
Reacting to the draw, Engr. Kida said the Nigerian girls have all the potentials to emerge the best in the tournament, saying that the Federation will leave no stone unturned to ensure that they get the best of preparations before the world cup will commence in Australia.
According to him, “we will do our best to ensure D’Tigress have a better preparation for the tournament, the team has been making the continent proud, i can assure that the forthcoming world cup will be another avenue for the team to make Nigerians and Africa proud the more”.
