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Colin Udoh
Multiple Authors
The Minnesota Lynx announced that Nigeria’s women’s national basketball team will play the WNBA franchise in a historic pre-season friendly at the T-Mobile Center on April 27.
The game was announced by the Lynx as part of a three-game pre-season slate that includes the Washington Mystics and Toronto Tempo, one of the WNBA’s newest franchises.
According to a Lynx statement: “The matchup against the Nigeria Women’s National Team adds a compelling international element to the exhibition schedule, while the game against the Toronto Tempo, one of the WNBA’s newest franchises, is sure to draw plenty of interest as the young organization continues to find its footing in the league.”
In announcing the matchup, the Lynx have written themselves not just into the history books as the first WNBA team to play an African national team, they also become only the third WNBA team to play an international team, after the Indiana Fever and Chicago Sky both faced and defeated the Brazil Women’s national team 108-44 and 89-62 respectively.
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They would also be the first WNBA team to play against a continental champion, with D’Tigress coming in as the reigning AfroBasket champions after claiming a record five consecutive titles.
For the Nigerians, it would be their first time facing off against a WNBA franchise, but they are no strangers to playing against WNBA players in their regular contests against Team USA.
Although they have lost all their previous games against arguably the best women’s basketball team in the world, they have shown improvement, especially in their last game, when both teams met in the quarterfinal of the Olympic Games in Paris.
The USA, as widely expected, came away winners from that contest, but not without a scare. On a poor shooting night for D’Tigress, they held Team USA to a 88-74 victory, their slimmest ever against the Nigerians.
But there was more behind the numbers to have the Lynx concerned ahead of April. D’Tigress held the USA to their lowest winning margin in an Olympic quarterfinal; their previous wins were by 15 points or more. Their fightback 26 points in the fourth quarter, to cut a 30-point deficit, was the most the U.S. conceded in the last quarter in that competition.
Those 88 points? They were among the lowest tally Team USA posted at the Games. As for players, there is no shortage of American and WNBA experience in the Nigeria squad.
Amy Okonkwo shined with Dallas last season, after spending time with the Connecticut Sun without landing a contract. Murjanatu Musa has was also in training camp with the Sun, and Ezinne Kalu also spent time with the Atlanta Dream.
Head coach Rena Wakama is on the coaching staff of the Chicago Sky and also coaches in the Unrivalled league.
There has been no confirmation as yet from the Nigeria side, which might be because, once again, the game comes at a time when the country’s basketball federation, the NBBF, is again embroiled in a fresh round of leadership crisis over tenure elongation.
Outgoing president Musa Kida, is facing opposition from a section of his board members and Congress, who claim that the current board’s four-year tenure expired on January 31 in line with the NBBF Constitution following their swearing in on January 31, 2022. Kida’s loyalists argue that the tenure expires on October 6.
At the core of the issue is what constitutes the start date of the board. While one faction of the board points to the January election and swearing in, the other party contends that they did not begin to function until they were officially recognized by the government through the sports ministry in October.
A similar crisis led to the team being withdrawn from the last FIBA Women’s World Cup.
For the moment, Kida continues to lead the NBBF, and this scrimmage appears to have been organized under his leadership.
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