Final Phase of Basketball Africa League 2024 Reaches Climax

“This time our target is to qualify out of our conference and get to the playoffs,” Queen John-Moseph, Rivers Hoopers media manager, told OkayAfrica before this year’s BAL tipped off. After topping the Sahara Conference with a stellar 4-2 record, Hoopers eliminated 2022 champs, Tunisia’s U.S. Monastir, and will be looking to complete an outstanding run with a podium finish.

In the other semi-final, 2022 runners-up, Angola’s Petro De Luanda will face Cape Town Tigers.

To book its final four slot, Petro De Luanda had to erase a 20-point deficit near the midway point of the fourth quarter, in their quarter-final game against 2023 runners-up, Senegal’s A.S. Douanes. It made for one of the most rousing wins in this year’s BAL.

The South African team, the Cape Town Tigers, also had to win a nail-biter to make it to the semis, squeaking past Moroccan first timers, FUS De Rabat with a 91-88 victory. It’s the Tigers’ first time reaching this stage of the competition, after getting eliminated at the quarter final stage in the two previous BAL editions.

This year’s BAL is the most expansive version of the competition yet, with the introduction of the Kalahari Conference and four teams making their debut. While most of the competition has sailed smoothly, Burundi’s Dynamo Club had to pull out due to an ongoing diplomatic rift with major sponsor and final phase host Rwanda.

As with previous years, all the final four games will be played inside the BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda.