Nigeria’s women basketball team, D’Tigress have been ranked the 16th best team in the world and first in Africa according to the latest FIBA ranking released during the weekend.
D’Tigress, who won the 2019 AfroBasketball Women’s Championship in Senegal earlier this year defeating the host country in the final, moved three places up in the latest ranking.
However, after garnering 329.2 points, the Nigeria ladies are the only African team in the top 20.
FIBA announced on their website that with the new women’s competition system starting this month with the FIBA Women’s Olympic Pre-Qualifying Tournaments in Africa, the Americas and Asia, it has launched the new system for the FIBA World Ranking Women, presented by Nike.
Moving from a competition-based system to a game-based one, the new ranking is based on results of games ranging from regional pre-qualifiers all the way to the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup Final, including the Olympics as well as FIBA Continental Cups.
The previous ranking was purely competition-based and only considered the final standings of tournaments.
The four-times Afrobasket winners will aim to pick one of the two Olympic slots for the continent at the Africa Pre-Qualifying Tournament billed to hold in Mozambique from November 14-17.
Packaged by Lanre Olabisi
