The Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) has appointed Rena Wakama to serve as the head coach of D’Tigress, Nigeria’s women basketball national team.
The NBBF who made this announcement via a tweet on Friday, June 30, confirmed that the retired basketball player would head the national team for two years.
D’Tigress, five-time Afrobasket champions, have been without a head coach since Otis Hughley left the role in 2022.
Rena Wakama who is a former national team player and is currently an assistant coach at Stony Brook University is from Rivers State.
She earned honours at Western Carolina University and played basketball professionally in the United Kingdom before she went into coaching.
Rena Wakama graduated from Western Carolina with a bachelor’s in therapeutic recreation in 2014, and Manhattan with an MBA in 2019.
After working there for two years as the Director of Women’s Basketball Operations, Wakama is now in her fourth season as an assistant coach at Manhattan College.
Wakama serves as the team’s academic and volunteer liaison in addition to managing the development of the wing/guard position players in her role as an assistant coach.
Under her leadership, the Jaspers achieved a team GPA of 3.61, a program best, and placed fifth nationally in Division I women’s basketball for community service hours.
