NBBF to retain Wakama as D’Tigress Coach, Confirms Kida

Musa Kida, President of the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF), has confirmed that Rena Wakama will continue as the head coach of D’Tigress following their historic performance at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Paris, Kida praised Wakama, the first female head coach of D’Tigress, for her remarkable achievements. Under Wakama’s leadership, D’Tigress won the 2023 AfroBasket and secured their Olympic qualification in February.

Wakama’s achievements were acknowledged by FIBA when she was named the best coach at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Kida emphasised that the journey to Paris 2024 began in 2017 to shock the world. He highlighted their similar success at the FIBA World Cup in Spain in 2018 and reflected on their strong preparations for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics despite financial constraints that hindered their performance.

”They did the same thing in the FIBA World Cup in Spain in 2018, reaching the same feat; rolling from there was the Olympics in Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

”Our preparations for Tokyo were second to none; I don’t think our girls ever prepared to or were more prepared to play in any Olympics.

”Unfortunately, because of the resources we didn’t have, even though preparations were top-notch, we didn’t perform as expected.

”Fast forward to the ripples that we had in 2021 and 2022 about inner frictions between the players and the allowances they didn’t get.

”So, there was a little fallout from there when the government decided to withdraw us from international women’s basketball events; we had to rebound on that, go back to the trenches to rebuild,” Kida added.

Following setbacks in 2021 and 2022, including internal disputes and missed allowances, the Nigerian government temporarily withdrew the team from international competitions. However, the NBBF worked to rebuild the team, leading to their recent success.

D’Tigress made history at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games by becoming the first African team, male or female, to reach the quarterfinals of an Olympic basketball tournament. Their journey was fuelled by a strong defence and inspired coaching from Wakama.

Kida acknowledged Wakama’s fresh approach and the support she received to build a team blending new talent with experienced players. The team’s preparation included victories in Kigali, securing their fourth consecutive AfroBasket title, and successful qualification for the Olympics in Belgium.

”Wakama came in with new blood, and then we gave her all the support possible to build this new team with a few old people,” Kida continued.

”We got through the qualifiers; first, we went to Kigali last year, and we won the Afro basketball for the fourth time consecutively. We went to Belgium in February to qualify for the Olympics.

”We went to Germany in July, and we had a robust strategic plan on what we wanted, after which we had three friendlies, one in Berlin, the other in Serbia, and then against the Japanese team here in Paris,” he said.

While Kida expressed satisfaction with the team’s performance, he wished they had better preparations for a stronger showing in Paris.

NAN