Ezinne Kalu (born 26 June 1992) is a Nigerian-American

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

player for

Landerneau Landerneau (; br, Landerne, ) is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in north-western France. It lies at the mouth of the Elorn River which divides the Breton provinces of Cornouaille and Léon, east of Brest. The name is from ...

Bretagne Basket and the Nigerian national team. In the 2017, 2019 and 2021 Afrobasket events, She represented D'Tigress, Africa's highest-ranked side and won three straight

championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

for them. She was named 2019 Women's Afrobasket Most Valuable Player (MVP).

Early life

She was born in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.Greenville, SC Greenville (; locally ) is a city in and the seat of Greenville County, South Carolina, United States. With a population of 70,720 at the 2020 census, it is the sixth-largest city in the state. Greenville is located approximately halfway be ...

. Her father is Nigerian. Kalu attended Science Park High School in Newark, New Jersey. She was the first woman in the school's history to score over 2,000 points. Her jersey was retired in December 2017. After graduating in 2010, Kalu received a full scholarship to

HBCU Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving the African-American community. Mo ...

Savannah State University ) , established = , closed = , type = Public historically black university , parent = University System of Georgia , academic_affiliation = Space-grant , endowment ...

Savannah, GA Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the British colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later t ...

. There her team won their first MEAC Championship in 2015. She was also the first to score over 2,000 career points in the school. She graduated in May 2015 with a bachelor's degree in

African Studies African studies is the study of Africa, especially the continent's cultures and societies (as opposed to its geology, geography, zoology, etc.). The field includes the study of Africa's history (pre-colonial, colonial, post-colonial), demography ...

Professional career

After graduating from Savannah State, Kalu spent two seasons in the Portuguese Championship. In 2015, she signed with Clube Desportivo Torres Novas (22.7 points, 6.0 rebounds and 5.1 assists). At the end of the her first season in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

, she signed for Olivais Coimbra (21.5 points, 4.0 rebounds and 4.3 assists). In 2017, Kalu signed with Hungarian club Vasas Akademia for one season (17.0 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.9 assists). In November 2018, she signed with German club Keltern. She helped Keltern qualify for the final of the German Championship (13.6 points and 2.5 assists). In 2019, she joined the French side Landerneau BB, where she averaged 15.7 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.2 assists in the 2019-2020 season. *2021 AfroBasket tournament champion *2020 Guard of the Year, France 1st Division *2020 1st Team, All-Imports France League *2020 1st Team, All-French Player *2020 Qualified for the Tokyo Olympics (July 2021) *2020 All-Star top 5 of the Olympic qualifying tournament in Serbia *2020 Voted Top 12 Best Player of Africa *2019 1st woman to be sponsored by AFA Sports *2019 AfroBasket tournament champion (5-0 record) *2019 MVP of AfroBasket tournament *2019 Top 5 player of AfroBasket tournament *2018 Co-Captain of the

Nigeria women's national basketball team The Nigeria women's national basketball team, also known as D'Tigeress, represents Nigeria in international women's basketball competition, and are regulated by the Nigeria Basketball Federation, the governing body for basketball in Nigeria. Nige ...

*2017 Defensive Player of the Year, Budapest 1st Division *2017 AfroBasket tournament champion (8-0 record) *2016-17 Captain of the Nigerian women's national team *2016 Guard of the Year, Portugal 1st Division

International career

Kalu played for the Nigerian national team at the 2016 FIBA women's Olympic qualifying tournament. She participated in the

2017 Women's Afrobasket The 2017 FIBA Women's AfroBasket was the 23rd AfroBasket Women, played under the rules of FIBA, the world governing body for basketball, and FIBA Africa. The tournament was hosted by Mali from 18 to 27 August, with games played at Bamako. The wi ...

, where she averaged 12 pts, 3 assists per game. The team won the tournament. Kalu participated in the

2018 FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup The 2018 FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup, the 18th edition of FIBA's premier international tournament for women's national basketball teams, was held in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain from 22 to 30 September 2018. This was the first edition to u ...

in Spain for the

Nigerian national basketball team The Nigeria national basketball team represents Nigeria in men's international basketball and it is overseen by the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF). In March 2021, the global governing body FIBA ranked Nigeria as Africa's top men's basket ...

. She averaged 10.6 points, 3 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game during the tournament. Kalu then participated in the

2019 Women's Afrobasket The 2019 AfroBasket Women was held from 10 to 18 August 2019 in Dakar, Senegal. It was also the first step for the qualification for FIBA Africa for the women's basketball tournament at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. The top six teams ...

where she was named Most Valuable player of the tournament. She averaged 14 points and 3 assists during the tournament. She competed at 2020 FIBA Olympic qualifying tournament, averaging 16 points, 2.7 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game. She was named to the all Star five of the FIBA olympic qualifying tournament holding in Serbia Kalu also participated in Tokyo 2020 Olympics in July 2021 and was part of the Nigerian team that narrowly lost to Team USA, leading the team with 16 points. In September 2021, she participated in the Afrobasket tournament emerging champion with Nigeria's D'Tigress averaging 12.4 points, 3 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game. She was named to the all Star team of the tournament.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kalu, Ezinne 1992 births Living people Nigerian women's basketball players Basketball players from Newark, New Jersey Point guards Nigerian expatriate basketball people in Germany Expatriate basketball people in Hungary Expatriate basketball people in Portugal Nigerian expatriate sportspeople in Hungary Nigerian expatriate sportspeople in Portugal Basketball players at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic basketball players of Nigeria American expatriate basketball people in Germany American expatriate basketball people in Hungary American expatriate basketball people in Portugal American women's basketball players Citizens of Nigeria through descent African-American basketball players Nigerian people of African-American descent American emigrants to Nigeria American sportspeople of Nigerian descent 21st-century African-American sportspeople