A catastrophic second quarter performance and a half-hearted fight back in the third among other things but including an efficient points made from Turnovers by Serbia played a major part in Nigeria’s first defeat at the Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament.
The Nigerian team had picked up an 85-51 victory over fellow African side, Mozambique in their first game and put themselves in good stead for a place at the Games in Tokyo.
However, the Hughley Otis’ team showed some obvious weakness from the free throw line and the bench failed to impact the game in the 70-64 defeat.
Ify Ibekwe scored just 4 points and Evelyn Akhator contributed 5 rebounds in a combined 45:38 minutes on the floor.
Of the starters Promise Amukamara showed some good form, continuing from her exploits against Mozambique. She posted 15 points, but it was Ezinne Kalu who came up with the team-high 20 points.
But Serbia were solid and needed to be after the host lost their opening game 88-69 against the USA.
The team’s bench scored a total of 9 points and 30 year-old SF Sonja Vasic dropped a game-high 21 points; three players in the Serbia starters ended up with double figure points.
There are two available tickets in the group as the United States of America team are already through to the Summer Games courtesy their World Cup win in Spain two years ago.
But the World Champions are 2-0 with an emphatic 79 points blow out of Mozambique.
They American next face Nigeria’s D’Tigress, the latter almost guaranteed a place at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
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