By Head coach of the Nigeria women’s national basketball team, Rena Wakama, has urged her players to move past their defeat to the South Korea women’s national basketball team and concentrate on their next fixture against the Philippines women’s national basketball team in the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup qualifying tournament in Lyon, France.
D’Tigress suffered a 77–60 loss to South Korea on Thursday in their second game of the competition, marking the first time the Nigerian senior women’s team has been beaten by the Asian side.
Nigeria kept the game close in the first half, trailing narrowly 36–32 at halftime after a competitive opening two quarters. However, the African champions struggled to maintain their rhythm in the second half as South Korea extended their lead to secure victory.
Victoria Macaulay delivered a standout performance for Nigeria, building on her Most Valuable Player display in the opening game against the Colombia women’s national basketball team. She finished with 22 points and six rebounds.
Reacting after the match, Wakama admitted her team had difficulties with shooting and turnovers but stressed that the loss would serve as a learning experience.
“Korea is a great team. We struggled today shooting the ball and we turned it over 22 times, which is not typical of our game,” Wakama said.
“Mentality-wise we are fine, and we are not going to overreact to the loss. There are lessons in defeats, so we will take those lessons from this game, improve and be ready for the next one.”
She also praised South Korea for their physical approach and defensive intensity during the contest. South Korea remain among the teams hoping to secure one of the two available World Cup places from the round-robin qualifying tournament.
Nigeria and the Germany women’s national basketball team, however, have already qualified for the tournament scheduled for September in Berlin, Germany, and are using the event as preparation. The qualifying tournaments are taking place across four host nations; France, Turkey, Puerto Rico and China as teams battle for the remaining places at the global competition.
Nigeria will next face the Philippines on Saturday before rounding off their fixtures against the France women’s national basketball team and Germany.
