Win or go home – the 2024 BAL is heating up

The eight teams competing at the 2024 BAL postseason have reached a stage where small mistakes can cost them the season.

The teams now face a win-or-go-home moment as the Quarterfinals get underway on Sunday, May 26 at BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda with the first two games.

The defending champions Al Ahly SC (Egypt) will be put to the test when they take on BAL debutant Al Ahly Ly from Libya at 2:30 pm (local time).

Three hours later, Cape Town Tigers (South Africa) will try to defy the odds when they play high-flying FUS de Rabat.

Except for the Egyptian champions, none of the other three teams in Sunday’s BAL action have ever reached the Semifinals of the competition.

The remaining four other teams will enter the defining stage of the season on Monday, May 27.

AS Douanes will go up against Petro de Luanda, Rivers Hoopers will play US Monastir.

One thing is certain. By the end of the 2024 BAL season there won’t be any undefeated team.

WHERE TEAMS STAND AHEAD OF THE QUARTERFINALS?

Reigning BAL champions Al Ahly SC arrived in Kigali with the highest record (5-1) of all eight team.

But this is not the case anymore as the 2023 BAL winners drop to second place in the final rankings ahead of the Quarterfinals after an 89-78 loss to FUS de Rabat.

Agusti Julbe Bosch, the only coach with two BAL titles under his belt is now in his third year with Al Ahly SC, insists that there’s no room for error.

“As I told my players,” Bosch opened up, “If we stay together after this loss [against FUS de Rabat] and we trust each other, I have no doubt that we can make it through.”

He continued, “This has happened to us in the [Egyptian] domestic league before. We put ourselves in a tough [position] to [win]the Championship and we did it. It depends on us, but we have to change a lot of things on the court.”

Al Ahly SC currently hold a head-to-head advantage against Al Ahly Ly, having beaten the Libyan champions twice in the Nile Conference last month in Cairo.

Yet, Bosch acknowledges that the elimination round is a different reality, “We can’t underestimate anyone regardless of where they come from or which type of team they are in or what budget they have. Any team here can beat each other and there have been many examples of unexpected results.”

Al Ahly Ly head coach Ivan Jermic says that his employers can’t think of anything else but win the whole thing.

“The people from my club they really want to win the BAL. Their appetite [to win the BAL] is big. We’ll see. We’ll give it our best. It won’t be easy because there are lots of good teams, good players, good coaches and a good organization.”

Al Ahly Ly are now 4-3 thanks to their 87-76 victory over Cape Town Tigers in the Classification Round.

“This is the first time that we play with this roster since our point guard Pierre Jackson left,” the Serbian play-caller said.

“It’s not going to be easy to beat the best team in Africa,” he admitted.

In Sunday’s second game, Cape Town Tigers will try to beat FUS de Rabat for the first time this season to advance to the Semifinals.

If they do beat the highest-ranked team in the post-season, this will be one of the biggest upsets of the season.

FUS de Rabat beat Cape Town Tigers twice during the 2024 Kalahari Conference two months ago in Pretoria, South Africa.

The South African champions made some major adjustments to their rosters, with the arrival of Dhieu Deng, Abdoulaye Ndoye and Brian Bridgeforth, but, head coach Flosh Ngwenya admits that they need to shoot the ball better.

“We just need to shoot the ball slightly better in the next game. Seven-for-31 [from behind the three-point line], we are not [going to] wingames shooting like that.”

Petro de Luanda came up short in the Classification Round after a 70-67 loss to US Monastir, and before they take on AS Douanes, a team that ended their BAL title aspirations in the Semifinals last year, newly appointed head coach Sergio Moreno Valdeomillos said they will be ready for a comeback.

Petro de Luanda are 2-3 ahead of their Quarterfinals match-up against the Senegalese champions (4-3).

“The only thing we are focused on is to win in the next game,” Valdeomillos noted.

Yanick Moreira, who has won a number of titles in his career - including the 2019 FIBA Champions League with Virtus Bologna and the 2017 G League title with the Raptors 905 – is yet to lift the BAL trophy.

“In the next stages [of the BAL], you can feel sorry for yourself. You lose, you are out,” the 32-year-old center pointed out.

When US Monastir and Rivers Hoopers clashed during the 2024 Sahara Conference, they shared one win each.

While the Hoopers came up short to AS Douanes (63-57) in the Classification Round, and, as a result, they dropped to 4-3, US Monastir stunned Petro de Luanda at the buzzer (70-67) to improve to 4-3.