How did Al Ahly Ly and Petro de Luanda make it to the 2024 BAL Final?

Two teams with different backgrounds in the history of the Basketball Africa League will clash on Saturday, June 1 for this season’s title at BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda.
 
But how did Al Ahly Ly (Libya) and Petro de Luanda (Angola) make it to the 2024 BAL Championship Game?
 
For the Benghazi-based team, who earned the right to represent Libya in the BAL Qualifiers as the country’s champions, everything started last October.

Al Ahly Ly – and FUS de Rabat – advanced automatically to the to the Road to BAL's Elite 16 round after Benin’s Elan Coton and Niger’s AS Nigelec pulled out  of their participation from the Pre-Qualifier West Division's Group A, which was scheduled to take place in Benghazi from October 13-15.
 
In the West Division Elite hosted in Yaoundé, Cameroon, from October 31 to November 5, Al Ahly Ly could only secure their ticket to the 2024 BAL season on the last day thanks to a 93-84 win over Cameroon’s FAP in the Third-Place Game on November 5.
 
From November until Al Ahly Ly’s BAL debut last month during the 2024 Nile Conference, the team underwent a profound transformation, with new faces coming on board.
 
Three weeks before the start of the BAL season, Serbian Ivan Jeremic replaced Tunisian Aoun Monaem at the helm of the Libyan champions.
 
Following Monaem’s departure, Al Ahly Ly let go Zachary Lofton, Ater Majok and Chris Crawford, who all played a huge role in the team’s qualification for the 2024 BAL.   
 
Al Ahly Ly’s new recruits included Majok Deng, Jo-Lual Acuil Jr., Kevin Murphy, and, more recently, Robert Golden, who joined the team a week before the 2024 BAL Playoffs, replacing Pierre Jackson who helped Al Ahly Ly to a 3-3 mark in the Nile Conference in April in Cairo, Egypt.
 
It took Jeremic’s team some time to click in, and since their arrival in Kigali, Al Ahly Ly beat Cape Town Tigers (South Africa),  Al Ahly SC (Egypt) and Rivers Hoopers (Nigeria).

Al Ahly Ly has become the first team that has been through the FIBA-run Road BAL qualifiers to make it to the BAL Final.
 
Petro de Luanda, on the other hand, has become the second team – since US Monastir – to reach the BAL Final for the second time since the league’s inception in 2021.
 
Unlike Al Ahly Ly, Petro de Luanda are among the five other teams that qualify directly to the BAL regular season courtesy of winning their national league titles.
 
After a bumpy 2024 Kalahari Conference held last March in Pretoria, South Africa, where Petro de Luanda finished 2-2, they too made some significant changes to their roster and style of play.
 
Spaniard Sergio Valdeolmillos Moreno replaced José Neto as the head coach of Petro de Luanda.
 
After taking over the team, Valdeolmillos led Petro de Luanda to the 2024 Angolan League title, beating Inter Club 3-1 in a best-of-five Final last month.
 
But the most visible change that Valdeolmillos introduced is the team’s starting line-up.

Except for Gerson Goncalves and Aboubacar Gakou, Carlos Morais, Childe Dundao, Jone Pedro are now starting off the bench, instead, Valdeolmillos brought in Gerson Domingos, Yanick Moreira and Glofate Buiamba as starters.
 
Petro de Luanda started their BAL postseason with a heartbroken 70-67 defeat to US Monastir in the Classification Round, but they have bounced back with two nail-biting wins over AS Douanes – a team they lost to in 2023 BAL Semi-Finals –, and, Cape Town Tigers.