Joe Apu
Reigning AfroBasket Women champions, D’ Tigress of Nigeria will today take on Raptors basketball team at the Indoor Sports Hall of the National Stadium, Lagos as they finalise arrangement for their title defence in this year’s championship.
The girls who also enjoyed the same stiff before they headed out to Mali and Spain in 2017 and 2018 respectively would use the encounter to tidy up their preparations for the championship which begins August 10.
Assisrant coach of the team, Peter Ahmedu told The Sun Sports on Saturday that the game is of good training for the girls as it will toughen them up for the challenges ahead.
The girls that have a full complement of 16 players with the arrival of Evelyn Akhator and Elizabeth Balogun are billed to travel out from Lagos on Monday aboard Air Cote d’ Ivoire but that plan is now doubtful as the Nigeria Basketball Federation is yet to raise the needed fund to execute the trip. According to Extrasportsnigeria.com on Friday, through the Vice President of NBBF, Babs Ogunade that cash was still far from being available for the 2019 AfroBasket for the Women.
Ogunade said, “The only challenge now is how to get the team (D’Tigress) to Dakar and it is a real problem. There’s no fund available for now. We have never had it this challenging and it is quite a battle get the team going. “It is tough like this because we have virtually all the competitions hold so close to each other.”