BAL set to resume in March

The Basketball Africa League (BAL) has announced the top 12 club teams from 12 African countries that will compete in the 2023 BAL season.

The 2023 BAL seaon will tip off on Saturday, March 11 at the Dakar Arena in Dakar, Senegal, and will once again feature a total of 38 games in Dakar; Cairo, Egypt and Kigali, Rwanda over three months in 2023.

The 12 teams include defending BAL champion US Monastir (Tunisia) and five other teams returning from the 2022 season.

Five teams will compete in the BAL for the first time, including the first BAL teams from Côte d’Ivoire and Uganda: Abidjan Basket Club (Côte d’Ivoire), Al Ahly (Egypt), City Oilers (Uganda), Kwara Falcons (Nigeria) and Stade Malien (Mali). AS Douanes (Senegal) returns to the BAL after participating in the inaugural season in 2021.

The season opener will feature AS Douanes taking on Abidjan Basket Club on March 11 at 4:00 p.m. GMT. US Monastir will begin its title defense on Sunday, March 12 at 5:30 p.m. GMT against Stade Malien.

The 12 teams will once again be divided into two conferences – the Sahara Conference and the Nile Conference.

Each conference will play a 15-game group phase during which each team will face the other five teams in its conference once.

The Sahara Conference’s group phase will take place at the Dakar Arena from March 11-21.

The Nile Conference’s group phase will take place at Hassan Mostafa Indoor Sports Complex in Cairo from April 26 - May 6.

The top four teams from each conference will qualify for the BAL Playoffs and Finals, which will feature a single-elimination tournament at BK Arena in Kigali from May 21-27.

BAL President Amadou Gallo Fall expalined that he expects improvements this season.

He said, “There is incredible momentum leading up to the third BAL season, and each of the 12 teams have fought hard to earn their spot through intense competition,”

“We are very excited to see the on-court action tip off next month in Dakar and look forward to delivering world-class basketball and entertainment to our passionate fans across Africa and around the world.”

FIBA Africa and BAL Board President Anibal Manave added, “We are thrilled to rollout what promises to be another exceptional BAL season.

“Judging from the quality of the teams that qualified through the Road to the BAL tournaments which ended in November last year, we are confident that fans and viewers will be treated to top-tier basketball that reflects the caliber of the talent we have on the continent."

Champions from the national leagues in Angola, Egypt, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, and Tunisia earned their participation in the 2023 BAL season by winning their respective national leagues.

The remaining six teams, which come from Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Mozambique, 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 2022.

US Monastir are defending BAL cahmpions as they defeated Petro de Luanda to win the 2022 BAL Finals in front of a sold-out crowd of 10,000 at BK Arena.