Nigeria’s senior female basketball team, D’Tigress, will face hosts, Australia, France, Canada, Japan and Serbia in Group B of the 2022 FIBA Women’s World Cup.
The Nigerian team, the reigning African champions, were drawn in the group, branded the group of death, in a draw held in Sydney on Thursday.
The competition is billed to commence from September 22 to October 1 in Sydney, Australia.
Australia, Canada, France, Japan, and Serbia are ranked number three, four, six, eight, and ten in the world, respectively, while Otis Hughley’s girls are number 14 but rated first in Africa.
The USA, bidding for their fourth consecutive Women’s World Cup, will face Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, China, South Korea and a soon to be decided country that will replace Russia, after FIBA suspended the county over the invasion of Ukraine.
Russia had qualified for the tournament, but world governing body FIBAa has excluded Russian teams and officials from its competitions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
D’Tigress, Africa’s sole representative at the tournament, booked their place after beating France and Mali in the qualification stage. They will hope to surpass the quarter-final record they set in Tenerife, Spain, in 2018.
The top four teams in each group will proceed to the quarter-finals at the tournament.
The Americans, ranked number one in the world, swept past Japan to clinch a seventh straight Olympic Games gold last August and have won a record 10 World Cups.