Nigeria’s senior women’s basketball team, the D’Tigress suffered a second consecutive warm-up game defeat to Serbia in Belgrade on Sunday as they continued their preparations for the 2024 Paris Olympics Games which will be held between 26 July and 11 August in France.
The African champions lost 70-62 points to the 10th-ranked country in the FIBA World ranking.
This is the team’s second match ahead of the women’s basketball tournament of the 2024 Olympic Games following a 77-63 defeat to Germany at the UBER Arena in Berlin on Friday.
Rena Wakama’s ladies started slowly and trailed by six points in the first quartre which ended 21-15.
Serbia took a 10-point lead into the halftime break after winning the second quartre 18-14 as well.
The African champions began a charge in the third quartre, levelling things at 18-18 before winning the last quartre by 15-13 points.
The late rally wasn’t enough as Serbia ran out with an eight-point gap.
The Nigerian team will play their final warm-up game against Japan on 24 July in Lille, France before the start of the basketball event at the Olympics
Nigeria faces a titanic battle against Canada, Australia, and host France in group B.
Nigeria, record four consecutive winners of the FIBA Afrobasket, will be punching above their weight in Paris, with their first opponents, Australia, ranked third in the world, while Canada and France are ranked fifth and seventh, respectively.
They will be aiming for their first-ever win in the Women’s Olympic Basketball Tournament, having lost all group games and conceded over 200 points on their debut at Tokyo 2020, succumbing 87-62 to France in their first game, followed by an 81-72 defeat to the USA and a 102-83 loss to Japan in the second and third, respectively.
