Skip to Main Content

December 6, 2021

THE BUILD-UP TO THE ELITE 16 OF ROAD TO THE BAL

Since its inception earlier this year, the Basketball Africa League (BAL) has become one of the highlights of the African basketball calendar.

The BAL second edition is now at the embryonic stage following the first round of the Road to BAL qualifiers played in October in Conakry (Guinea), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Johannesburg (South Africa), and Yaoundé (Cameroon).

Twelve teams advanced to the Elite 16 round and will be joined by automatically-qualified former African champions Association Sportive Salé of Morocco.

And, to complete the decisive round’s line-up, FIBA will award three wildcards.

There have been some entertaining games in the first round of the Road to BAL with two, in particular, going to the wire when Cape Town Tigers saw off Ferrovario da Beira in the waning seconds of the game. Both Tigers and Ferroviario reached the last day of the competition undefeated in two games. In Conakry, hosts SLAC came up with an upset.

Which teams made it to the Elite 16?

The highly-anticipated BAL’s second season is reflected by the high number of new teams that reached the Elite 16, where teams will be divided into Divisions West and East with eight teams each.

With exception of F.A.P of Cameroon, A.S Salé and Mali’s A.S Police – who all featured in the inaugural BAL season –, City Oilers (Uganda), AS Nigelec (Niger) and Guinea’s SLAC – a trio that came up short in the Road to BAL 2019 qualifiers – seven teams are new to the competition.

The newcomers to the Last 16 are BC Espoir Fukash (DR Congo), S.O.A (Ivory Coast), New Star (Burundi), Ulinzi Warriors (Kenya), Kurasini Heats BC (Tanzania), Cape Town Tigers (South Africa), and Ferroviario da Beira (Mozambique).
The host cities for the Elite 16 round, scheduled for December, are expected to be announced soon by FIBA.

A number of events in the first round couldn’t have gone unnoticed, and below are some examples.

Evans Ganapamo’s clatch

 The 27-year-old forward may have been relatively unknown to Cape Tigers fans when he joined the club in early October, but, not anymore as he became of the Tigers’ best players.

The Central African Republic international player stepped up when the South African champions needed him most, and he delivered in an 84-83 win over Ferroviario da Beira, a game not for the faint-hearted such as its intensity and unpredictability. Ganapamo finished with 24 points and buried a clutch three-pointer to win the game for the Tigers.

SLAC beat AS Police 

Against all the odds, Guinea champions SLAC stunned Mali champions AS Police 95-93 in the opener of the two-game series in Conakry. However, two days later AS Police returned the favor, winning 80-72 as both teams advanced to the Elite 16.

Who will grab the last six tickets to BAL’s season?

The champions of Angola, Egypt, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, and Tunisia qualified automatically to the second season of the BAL, but who will join them?

It’s hard to predict who will grab the last six tickets, especially because of the way some Elite 16 bounds competed throughout the first round last month, although City Oilers, F.A.P, and Tigers looked really competitive.