KIGALI (Rwanda) – For the first time in the history of the FIBA U16 Women’s AfroBasket, the title will not go to Mali. <\/p>\n
This historic moment occurred on Saturday, September 13 at the Petit Stade Gymnasium in Kigali, Rwanda, where C\u00f4te d’Ivoire stunned eight-time African champions Mali 45\u201340 in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n
Few saw it coming, but the Ivorians’ desperation, tenacity and self-belief have written a new chapter in the tournament’s history.<\/p>\n
Mali had won every edition of the tournament since its inception in 2009, but this time they will have to settle for third or fourth place.<\/p>\n
This is a remarkable achievement for C\u00f4te d’Ivoire, who were heavily defeated by Mali (65\u201338) in the group stage just a week ago.<\/p>\n
This victory secured C\u00f4te d’Ivoire one of two places available to African nations at the 2026 FIBA U16 Women’s Basketball World Cup in the Czech Republic July 11 to 19.<\/p>\n
TURNING POINT: With the score tied at 31-31 at the end of the third quarter, C\u00f4te d’Ivoire started the fourth quarter strongly when Lalya Diarisso scored a long two-pointer, followed by a three-pointer from Gnomon Kone. <\/p>\n
These decisive plays turned out to be a game-changing moment for C\u00f4te d’Ivoire, who never trailed again, despite Mali guard Yahe Bagayoko tying the game at 36-36 with five minutes remaining.<\/p>\n
Sensing a Mali comeback, C\u00f4te d’Ivoire intensified their defensive aggression, going on a 7-0 scoring run, and Mali were unable to respond. <\/p>\n
HERO: Although Jane Diomande and Ma\u00eblhis N’Dri were the top scorers for C\u00f4te d’Ivoire with nine points each, it was the team’s collective effort that caused Mali so many problems at both ends of the court. <\/p>\n
Fatima Konate came off the bench to shoot 2-for-2 from behind the arc, finishing with six points.<\/p>\n
STATS DON’T LIE: A week ago, when Mali and C\u00f4te d’Ivoire faced off, the reigning champions Mali dominated every single stats category of the game, cruising to a 65-38 win. <\/p>\n
However, the semi-final clash was very different from their first meeting, with C\u00f4te d’Ivoire out-rebounding Mali 61-50; They moved the ball impressively, sharing eleven assists, and forced Mali to turn the ball over 32 times. <\/p>\n
What really set the two teams apart, though, was the contribution of their respective benches, with C\u00f4te d’Ivoire’s outscoring Mali’s 24\u20133.<\/p>\n
BOTTOM LINE: Prior to Mali’s 45-40 loss to C\u00f4te d’Ivoire in the 2025 U16 Women’s AfroBasket tournament, their last loss was on 11 August 2021, when they fell to Egypt 66-56. <\/p>\n
However, they bounced back to win their seventh consecutive title.<\/p>\n
What we witnessed on Saturday was a new era in the tournament’s history, with the staggering result coming from a team classed as outsiders that reached the knockout stages after a 2\u20131 record in the group stages. <\/p>\n
Mali arrived in Kigali with a 30\u20131 winning streak dating back to the 2015 tournament, but C\u00f4te d’Ivoire put an end to that remarkable record and will now make their world stage debut next year.<\/p>\n
The biggest takeaway from this historic result is that it’s not how you start, but how you finish.<\/p>\n
WHAT THEY SAID: \u201cLooking back on the game, I still cannot grasp what went wrong. We did not play how we usually play, and this caused us some prejudice. They had good zone defense. We couldn\u2019t score, we couldn’t attack anymore. We still have one game left, we\u2019ll have to regroup, learn from our errors and try to win third place.\u201d – Mali captain Mariya Diawara.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re very happy to have made it past the Semi-Finals. Some time back, Mali beat us in a tournament they hosted, and they beat us again here, during the Group Phase. But we regrouped, tried to play more calmly and with more courage, without precipitating to overcome them.<\/p>\n
“After they beat us in the Group Phase, we had some adjustments. We came up with a tighter defense, and remained united in defense, and we shared the ball more.<\/p>\n
“Being qualified for the World Cup means a lot. It\u2019s our first time at the Women\u2019s U16 AfroBasket, and we take out the reigning champions. This is not given to anybody. We\u2019ll get to work once we\u2019re back in Abidjan to get ready for the World Cup.<\/p>\n
“Regarding tomorrow’s game, we\u2019ll first go get some rest, and then try and think about who we\u2019re playing. From then, we\u2019ll decided what system to set up.\u201d – C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire captain Ella Kon\u00e9.<\/p>\n
FIBA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KIGALI (Rwanda) – For the first time in the history of the FIBA U16 Women’s AfroBasket, the title…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-140185","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\/140185","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=140185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}