Final Phase of Basketball Africa League 2024 Reaches Climax
Four teams have made it through to the semi-finals, and a new winner will take home the Basketball Africa League trophy for the fourth year in a row.
Jean Jacques Boissy (L) of AS Douanes in action against Onyebuchi Vincent Nwaiwu (R) of Rivers’ Hoopers Hoopers during the Basketball Africa League's Sahara Conference match on May 04, 2024.
A new champion will emerge from the ongoing final phase of the fourth edition of the Basketball Africa League (BAL). All four teams in the semi-finals have never won the competition, with only one making it to the final. Both semi-final games will be played on Wednesday, May 29, the third-place game will take place on Friday, May 31, and the final game will be played on Saturday, June 1.
First-time participants, Libya’s Al Ahly Ly has made its mark with a deep run, qualifying as the second-placed team in the Nile conference and knocking out defending champions, Al Ahly of Egypt, in the quarter-finals. In the semis, Al Ahly Ly will play Rivers Hoopers, a team that’s fulfilling its goal to make a deep playoff run — the first time for a Nigerian team at BAL.
“This time our target is to qualify out of our conference and get to the playoffs,” Queen John-Moseph, Rivers Hoopers media manager, told OkayAfrica before this year’s BAL tipped off. After topping the Sahara Conference with a stellar 4-2 record, Hoopers eliminated 2022 champs, Tunisia’s U.S. Monastir, and will be looking to complete an outstanding run with a podium finish.
In the other semi-final, 2022 runners-up, Angola’s Petro De Luanda will face Cape Town Tigers.
To book its final four slot, Petro De Luanda had to erase a 20-point deficit near the midway point of the fourth quarter, in their quarter-final game against 2023 runners-up, Senegal’s A.S. Douanes. It made for one of the most rousing wins in this year’s BAL.
The South African team, the Cape Town Tigers, also had to win a nail-biter to make it to the semis, squeaking past Moroccan first timers, FUS De Rabat with a 91-88 victory. It’s the Tigers’ first time reaching this stage of the competition, after getting eliminated at the quarter final stage in the two previous BAL editions.
This year’s BAL is the most expansive version of the competition yet, with the introduction of the Kalahari Conference and four teams making their debut. While most of the competition has sailed smoothly, Burundi’s Dynamo Club had to pull out due to an ongoing diplomatic rift with major sponsor and final phase host Rwanda.
As with previous years, all the final four games will be played inside the BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda.
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