Rwanda's APR have been drawn in Sahara Conference in regular season of the Basketball Africa League (BAL) 2024 alongside Tunisia’s US Monastir, AS Douanes of Senegal and Nigerian Champions Rivers Hoopers.
The Sahara Conference will take place at Dakar Arena, in Senegal, from May 4-12.
The fourth BAL season will feature a record 48 games in Pretoria; Cairo, Egypt; Dakar, Senegal; and Kigali, Rwanda, marking the first BAL games in South Africa and the first time the league will be staged in four different countries.
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The 12 teams have been divided into three conferences of four teams each. Seven of the teams have competed in the BAL before, two of which –Petro de Luanda (Angola) and US Monastir (Tunisia) – will be competing for a record fourth season in a row with champions from Burundi, Central African Republic and Libya among teams making their debut in the competition’s regular season.
Each conference will play a 12-game group phase during which teams will played between them. New this season, the home team in each conference will play on every game day, including on the weekends.
Aside APR US-Monastir, BAL 2023 runners-up AS Douanes and Rivers Hoopers who will play in the Sahara conference, eight other teams were placed in the Nile Conference and Kalahali conferences.
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The inaugural Kalahari Conference, scheduled for March 9-17, is made up of Cape Town Tigers (South Africa), Dynamo Basketball Club (Burundi), FUS Rabat Basketball (Morocco) and Petro de Luanda (Angola).
The Nile Conference comprises Al Ahly (Egypt), Al Ahly (Libya), Bangui Sporting Club (Central African Republic) and City Oilers (Uganda).
It will take place at Hassan Mostafa Indoor Sports Complex in Cairo, Egypt, from April 19-27.
The top two teams from each conference and the best two third-placed teams from across the three conferences will travel to BK Arena in Kigali for four seeding games followed by an eight-game, single-elimination playoffs and finals from May 24 to June 1.
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In the season opener, first-time BAL participant FUS Rabat Basketball (Morocco) will face Petro de Luanda at 4:00 p.m. CAT. In the second game, home team Cape Town Tigers (South Africa) will take on first-time BAL participant Dynamo Basketball Club (Burundi) at 7:00 p.m. CAT.
On the opening day of the Nile Conference, home team and BAL reigning champions Al Ahly (Egypt) will begin title defense against two-time BAL participant City Oilers (Uganda) at 5:00 p.m. GMT.
Champions from the national leagues in Angola, Egypt, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Tunisia earned their participation in the 2024 BAL season by winning their respective national leagues.
The remaining six teams, which come from Burundi, Central African Republic, Libya, Morocco, 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 2023.