D’Tigress mentally ready to battle for title – Coach

Head coach of Senior National Women’s Basketball Team (D’Tigress) Sam Vincent, has expressed optimism on the team’s chances of claiming the forthcoming Afrobasket Women’s Championship in Mali.

Vincent told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) after the team’s drilling section at the National Stadium, Lagos that the players were mentally ready to challenge any other for the tile.

The 2017 Afrobasket Women’s Championship is scheduled to hold from August 18 to August 27.

Vincent said: “We have the capacity to do well at the coming championship, we have really good chemistry in the team, the homebased talents and the international players are just awesome.

“We brought some from our camp in Orlando, U.S and sincerely, I feel great about what Coach Peter Ahmedu has achieved with the home-based after watching them train.

“Offensively, the girls know what we want from them, at the defence they are also fantastic, so I feel very positive about the quality we have and very confident of achieving our goals.

“Our plans is to go and achieve success in Mali and hopefully come back with the championship’s trophy and get back to plans for the next summer Olympics,” Vincent said.

After the training session ended, the team was trimmed down from 19 to 14 with a great number of home-based players making the cut.

The current players slogging it out to make the final list are Aisha Mohammed, Cecelia Okoye, Adaora Eloonu, Ndidi Madu, Ezinne Kalu Phelps and Sarah Ogoke.

Others are Nkeshi Akashili, Magadalene Ukato, Upe Atosu, Adaeze Alaeze, Sarah Ogoke, Nkem Akaraigwe, Chioma Udeaja and Ugo Uwaigbe.

Nigeria’s women’s team would be working their socks to go two steps better than their third place performance in the 2015 edition.