APR BBC team
The Basketball Africa League (BAL) on Thursday announced that five new teams and three new countries are among clubs from 12 African countries that will compete in 2024 season.
The season will tip off on Saturday, March 9 at SunBet Arena in Pretoria, South Africa.
The fourth BAL season will feature a record 48 games in Pretoria, Cairo, Dakar and Kigali, first time the league will play games in four different countries.
The 12 participating teams have been divided into three conferences of Kalahari, Nile and Sahara with four teams each.
Rwanda will be lined up in the Sahara conference and represented by the Armée Patriotique Rwandaise Basketball (APR BBC facing. It will face teams like AS Douanes (Senegal), Rivers Hoopers (Nigeria) and US Monastir (Tunisia).
Each conference will play a 12-game group phase during which each team will face the other three teams in its conference twice.
New this season, the home team in each market will play on every game day, including on the weekends.
Seven of the above teams have competed in the BAL before, two of which – Petro de Luanda (Angola) and US Monastir (Tunisia) – will be competing for a record fourth season.
Five teams are making their BAL debut, including teams from Burundi, Central African Republic and Libya.
The inaugural Kalahari Conference group phase will take place from Saturday, March 9 – Sunday, March 17 at the SunBet Arena.
The Nile Conference group phase will take place from Friday, April 19 – Saturday, April 27 at Hassan Mostafa Indoor Sports Complex in Cairo while the Sahara Conference group phase will take place from Saturday, May 4 – Sunday, May 12 at the Dakar Arena in Dakar.
The top two teams from each conference and the top two third-place teams from across the three conferences will travel to BK Arena in Kigali for four seeding games followed by an eight-game, single-elimination Playoffs and Finals from Friday, May 24 – Saturday, June 1.
In the season opener, first-time BAL participant FUS Rabat Basketball (Morocco) will face Petro de Luanda at 4:00 p.m. CAT.
In the second game, home team Cape Town Tigers (South Africa) will take on first-time BAL participant Dynamo Basketball Club (Burundi) at 7:00 p.m. CAT.
On the opening day of the Nile Conference, home team Al Ahly (Egypt) will begin its title defense against two-time BAL participant City Oilers (Uganda) at 5:00 p.m. GMT.
Champions from the national leagues in Angola, Egypt, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Tunisia earned their participation in the 2024 BAL season by winning their respective national leagues.
The remaining six teams, which come from Burundi, Central African Republic, Libya, Morocco, South Africa and Uganda, secured their participation through the Road to the BAL qualifying tournaments conducted by FIBA Africa across the continent from October to November 2023.
