The qualifying tournament for the Basketball Africa League (BAL), called the Road to BAL, wrapped up in Johannesburg last weekend, teeing up the third edition of the continental men’s league which will take place in 2023.
The qualifying tournament for the Basketball Africa League (BAL), called the Road to BAL, wrapped up in Johannesburg last weekend, teeing up the third edition of the continental men’s league which will take place in 2023.
The upcoming season will feature 12 teams from across Africa — six that qualified through performances the previous season and six that had to come up through the qualifying phase.
These group-round games, which took place in October and November in Yaoundé, Niamey, Antananarivo, Abidjan and Johannesburg, featured 20 teams.
The successful six clubs from this year’s Road to BAL are Cape Town Tigers (South Africa), Ferroviário da Beira (Mozambique), City Oilers (Uganda), Abidjan Basket Club (Côte d’Ivoire), SLAC (Guinea) and Stade Malien (Mali) — three of which will be participating in the league for the first time.
They will join established heavyweights Petro de Luanda from Angola, Egypt’s Al
Ahly, Nigeria’s Kwara Falcons, Senegal’s AS Douanes, Tunisia’s US Monastir and Rwanda’s Rwanda Energy Group.
Surprise absentees for 2023 are Morocco’s AS Salé, who were quarter-finalists this year, and Cameroon’s FAP, who finished in third place. Both failed to qualify.
Although not competing in the BAL, the NBA Academy Africa boy’s group, a team with an average age of 17, notched two noteworthy wins out of three games against Burundi’s Urunani and Kenya’s Ports Authority.
Dates for the 2023 BAL season are expected to be announced soon.
— The Continent