Pius Ayinor
Nigeria’s D’Tigress have cemented their dominance in African women’s basketball, by winning their fifth consecutive Women’s AfroBasket title with a lovely 78-64 victory over Mali. The game was played Sunday night in Abidjan.
The Malians started off with their supporters and won the first quarter 26-21. And as in their precious three games D’Tigress recovered to win the second quarter at 20-15 and both teams went on break tied at 41-41. The back-to-back African champions maintained the tempo winning the next stage 20-15 and then the last quarter at 17-8 to make it the fifth straight title.
The Nigerian team became the first on the continent to win the championship five times in a row.
The victory also extended Nigeria’s astonishing unbeaten run in the competition to 29 straight games—an unbroken streak dating back to 2015 in Yaoundé, Cameroon when they defeated Angola in the third-place match.
The battle between the two great basketball countries has stretched back a long way. Since the 2011 tournament in Bamako, Nigeria and Mali have faced off six times.
That year, Mali, the host country, ended Nigeria’s hopes of winning the title with a 71–62 semifinal victory.
Two years later, in Maputo, Mozambique, Mali defeated Nigeria twice. First, they won 78-45 in the group phase, and again they won 57-50 in the fifth-place game.
Nigeria turned things around from the 2017 Women’s AfroBasket semifinals in Bamako, Mali. Nigeria walked away with a 48–47 victory, marking the beginning of their eight-year African dominance.
Two years later, in 2019, Nigeria beat Mali 79-58 in Dakar, Senegal. They beat them again in the 2021 tournament final in Yaoundé, Cameroon.
Since 2011, Mali and Nigeria have each won three times but the victory that cannot be easily forgotten is this August 3, 2025 success that has given D’Tigress historic and record setting five-staright tittles..
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