Bangui Sporting Club, a Central African Republic outfit for which Rwandan shooting guard Kenny Gasana is featuring at the ongoing qualifiers of the Basketball Africa League (BAL), is one of the teams that will compete at the elite round of 16 slated for November. Bangui SC progressed to the round of 16 on October 13 after beating Equatorial Guinea’s Nueva Era Basketball Club 69-60 in Yaoundé, Cameroon. The star shooting guard is one of the players that will help achieve the club’s ambitions of making it to the BAL final tournament in 2023. The qualifiers commenced with a group stage featuring 20 teams from various African countries. Currently, some teams have already been eliminated. The round of 16 games will be played in Cote D'Ivoire and South Africa. Gasana, 37, is a two-time BAL participant having played for Rwandan Sides Patriots and Rwanda Energy Group (REG) during the 2021 and 2022 editions of BAL, respectively. He is an immensely experienced player who featured for various local and foreign clubs, as well as the Rwandan national team. Gasana also previously played for Arab clubs like Morocco’s Chabab Rif Al Hoceima and Ittihad Tanger in 2010 and 2018, respectively, as well as Gezira in Egypt for the 2014–15 season. He also played for Burundi’s New Stars and Al Bahrain, a Bahraini basketball club. Meanwhile, group-stage games are still ongoing for Groups A and D. From October 21 to October 24, Niamey (Niger) and Antananarivo (Madagascar) will host Groups A and D for the 2022 Road to BAL, in a round-robin competition system. Group A games will take place at Palais du 29 Juillet in Niamey. Teams drawn in Group A are hosts AS Nigelec, Stade Malien (Mali), Abidjan Basket Club (Cote d'Ivoire), and Elan Coton (Benin Republic). Teams in Group D will battle it out at Palais des Sports Mahamasina, Antananarivo. Those teams are hosts COSPN, Kenya Ports Authority (Kenya), Roche Bois (Mauritius), and Djabal Basket (Comoros). The teams that finish in the top two places of Groups A and D will qualify for the Elite 16 round to be held in November in Cote d'Ivoire and South Africa. ELITE 16 ROUND Group E (Abidjan, (COTE D'IVOIRE), November: AS Sale (Morocco), FAP (Cameroon), SLAC (Guinea - *TBD), Bangui Sporting Club (Central African Republic), and Nueva Era (Equatorial Guinea). This group will be complete with the top two teams from Group A. Group F (Johannesburg, (SOUTH AFRICA) November: Ferroviario da Beira (Mozambique), Cape Town Tigers (South Africa), Cobra Sports (South Sudan). The top two teams from Groups C and D will be added to Group F.
