Ezinne Kalu (born 26 June 1992) is a professional

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 (appro ...

player for the Zhejiang Golden Bulls of the

Women's Chinese Basketball Association The Women's Chinese Basketball Association (), often abbreviated as the WCBA, is the first-tier professional women's basketball league in China. It was established in 2002 as the women's counterpart to the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA). ...

(WCBA). Born in the United States, she represents

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

at international level. 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 sys ...

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 List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, the county seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, and a principal city of the New York metropolitan area. ...

to Gwendolyn Covington and Joseph Kalu. Her mother was born and raised in

Greenville, SC Greenville ( ; ) is a city in Greenville County, South Carolina, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 70,720 at the 2020 census, it is the sixth-most populous city in the state. The Greenville metropolitan area had 928,1 ...

. 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 serving African Americans. Most are in the Southern U ...

Savannah State University Savannah State University (SSU) is a Public university, public Historically black colleges and universities, historically black university in Savannah, Georgia, United States. It is the oldest historically black public university in the state. Th ...

Savannah, GA Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia and 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 the f ...

. 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 of Africa, history (pre-colonial, Colonisation of Af ...

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 her first season in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

, she signed for Olivais Coimbra (21.5 points, 4.0 rebounds and 4.3 assists). In 2017, Kalu signed with the Hungarian club Vasas Akademia for one season (17.0 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.9 assists). In November 2018, she signed with the 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, averaging 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 Tokyo Olympics may refer to: * 1940 Summer Olympics, Games of the XII Olympiad, cancelled due to World War II * 1964 Summer Olympics, Games of the XVIII Olympiad * 2020 Summer Olympics The officially the and officially branded as were an ...

(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 The AfroBasket (alternatively known as the FIBA Africa Championship, FIBA African Championship, or FIBA AfroBasket) is the men's basketball continental championship contested by the senior national teams of Africa Africa is the world's s ...

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 the D'Tigress, represents Nigeria in international women's basketball competition, and are regulated by the Nigeria Basketball Federation, the governing body for basketball in Nigeria ...

*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 2017, with games played in Bamako. T ...

, where she averaged 12 pts and 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 ...

in Spain for the

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

. 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 team ...

, 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 held 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.

Career statistics

WNBA

Regular season

''Stats current through end of 2024 season'' , - , style="text-align:left;",

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Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

, 1, , 0, , 13.0, , .333, , .000, , .500, , 1.0, , 0.0, , 1.0, , 0.0, , 0.0, , 3.0 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:left;", Career , style="text-align:left;", 1 year, 1 team , 1, , 0, , 13.0, , .333, , .000, , .500, , 1.0, , 0.0, , 1.0, , 0.0, , 0.0, , 3.0

Playoffs

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, 1, , 0, , 15.0, , .250, , .000, , .667, , 0.0, , 2.0, , 1.0, , 0.0, , 2.0, , 4.0 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:left;", Career , style="text-align:left;", 1 year, 1 team , 1 , , 0 , , 15.0 , , .250 , , .000 , , .667 , , 0.0 , , 2.0 , , 1.0 , , 0.0 , , 2.0 , , 4.0

College

, - , style="text-align:left;" , 2010–11 , style="text-align:left;" , Savannah State , 26, , 25, , -, , 41.7, , 30.1, , 61.7, , 3.2, , 2.9, , 3.1, , 0.2, , 4.3, , 15.4 , - , style="text-align:left;" , 2011–12 , style="text-align:left;" , Savannah State , 30, , 28, , -, , 32.0, , 21.9, , 71.7, , 4.0, , 2.8, , 2.7, , 0.2, , 5.2, , 17.6 , - , style="text-align:left;" ,

2012–13 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

, style="text-align:left;" , Savannah State , 12, , 11, , 31.3, , 52.6, , 40.7, , 66.7, , 2.7, , 2.9, , 2.8, , 0.1, , 4.3, , 13.4 , - , style="text-align:left;" , 2013–14 , style="text-align:left;" , Savannah State , 32, , 23, , 29.9, , 40.0, , 25.9, , 66.8, , 3.8, , 3.4, , 2.7, , 0.1, , 3.2, , 16.1 , - , style="text-align:left;" , 2014–15 , style="text-align:left;" , Savannah State , 31, , 31, , 35.0, , 41.5, , 25.0, , 73.9, , 4.4, , 3.2, , 3.3, , 0.2, , 3.3, , 16.5 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan=2 , Career , 131, , 118, , 32.3, , 39.1, , 26.1, , 68.6, , 3.8, , 3.1, , 2.9, , 0.2, , 4.0, , 16.2

References

External links

* * *
Ezinne Kalu
– college basketball player statistics at

Sports Reference Sports Reference, LLC is an American sports statistics company that operates databases of several sports. They include Pro Football Reference for American football, Baseball Reference for baseball, Basketball Reference for basketball, Hockey ...

* *
Ezinne Kalu
at the

Paris 2024 Summer Olympics The 2024 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad () and branded as Paris 2024, were an international multi-sport event held in France from 26 July to 11 August 2024, with several events started from 24 July. P ...