Afrobasket: Impressive track record for Lionesses

It has been an impressive performance from the basketball Lionesses in the just ended Africa cup of Nations dubbed Afrosbaket. Probably spurred the home-crowd effect, the Lionesses, who emerged 5th at the All African Games in Brazzaville metamorphosed into a veritable conquering side, defeating even some of the opponents, who beat them at the African Games.

The Lionesses began the campaign with a victory over Mozambique 69-54 thereby confirming their superiority to the Mozambicans whom they beat during the Brazzaville Games. The good form continued as the Lionesses in their second group game walloped Uganda 71-53.

They survived the Malian challenge by a hair’s breadth edging them 44-43 in a hotly contested encounter. It is worthy to note that Mali like Nigeria beat Cameroon at the 2015 All African games in Congo-Brazzaville. So the victory illustrated the progress made by the Lionesses since the Brazzaville games.

Gabon and South Africa were to following suite, succumbing to the overwhelming power of the Lionesses. The first real test to the Lionesses good form was in the semi-final encounter against Nigeria. During this encounter, the age-old rivalry between the two countries in sports once more raised its ugly head as Cameroon narrowly sailed through beating Nigeria 71-70.

The victory raised hope that Cameroon was about to clinch its first continental title in female basketball. However, their dreams were thwarted in the final by a clearly superior Senegalese team in the final.

The Lionesses were however far from being ridiculous as they bowed 66 to 81 after making a spectacular comeback before sinking again into the oblivion.

For a team that was fifth in the African Games to emerge second in the Africa Cup of Nations a few days later, was a real exploit.