KIGALI (Rwanda) – Shanice Mbaha stole the show as Cameroon dominated the second and third quarters against Tunisia, securing a 62-42 victory in Thursday’s quarter-finals and securing their place in the final four.<\/p>\n
The win puts Cameroon in prime position to fight for not only a 2026 FIBA U17 Women’s Basketball World Cup slot but a chance to lift their maiden African title on debut. The finalists at this year’s competition qualify for the global competition. <\/p>\n
Keen to follow in the footsteps of the U18 team that settled for bronze on their first time of asking in last year’s tournament held in South Africa, Priscilla Mbiandja’s charges who finished second in Group C, held their own against the experienced Tunisia who finished fourth in the last tournament. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mbaha, a standout performer for the Central Africans who has averaged 16.3 points so far, dropped 19, with a 4-of-13 conversion from range, adding 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 blocks and as many steals in the victory. <\/p>\n
Her prowess offensively was incredible, but the all-round performance of power forward Marie Messina who recorded her second double-double of the tournament with 16 points and 10 rebounds, that carried the side to victory. Diona Aline Bienvenue led the side’s defense, pulling down a team-high 15 boards.<\/p>\n
Rahma Nefzi’s driving layup gave Tunisia the opening advantage but Mbaha scored her second attempt from range in the match to hand Cameroon the lead early, starting a 7-0 run that extended their advantage while threatening to put Tunisia in ‘catch-up mode’ early. <\/p>\n
The North Africans fought to trail by 2 (14-12) as Nefzi shot from deep to bring the opening quarter action to a conclusion.\n<\/p>\n
Tunisia went ahead, momentarily (16-14)in the opening minutes of the second, and further 19-16, forcing Cameroon into a timeout. <\/p>\n
Roua Allouche would score to make it 21-16 but Candice Nlengui started a 12-point run that turned the match on its head, giving the eventual winners a 28-21 advantage with 3:49 to play. 8 more points in the remaining time meant Cameroon carried a 10-point advantage to the halftime break. <\/p>\n
A basket for Nefzi and a free throw down the stretch for Rihem Omri was all the offensive contribution Tunisia would manage in a 14-3 quarter, effectively sealing the win for Cameroon who trailed 13-12 in the final quarter, too late a resurgence for the Talel Chaoueche-led Tunisia. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cameroon punished Tunisia’s 26 turnovers, scoring 26, 20 more than the North Africans could manage off 16 turnovers. They also dominated the paint 32-26 but it was on second chance points that Mbiandja’s charges flexed muscles with a 24-2 dominance that left little to imagination as to which team would eventually carry the day. <\/p>\n
The win pits Cameroon against favourites Egypt, a side keen to end their 8-tounament wait for gold as Mali have dominated all the editions with the North Africans settling for silver in six of the eight editions, with one bronze<\/p>\n
FIBA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KIGALI (Rwanda) – Shanice Mbaha stole the show as Cameroon dominated the second and third quarters against Tunisia,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-135810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}