American coach Robert John Pack Jr has arrived in the country to link up with Rwanda Energy Group (REG) Basketball Club as they gear up for the playoffs of the Basketball Africa League (BAL) 2022 scheduled for May 21-28 in Kigali. Times Sport understands that the 53-year-old arrived in country on Thursday night from Cairo, Egypt where he attended the Nile Conference games of the BAL, trying to scout REGs potential opponents at the playoffs level. Last month, Pack steered REG to the last eight playoffs of the BAL, a feat they achieved in style after topping the Sahara Conference that had top teams like Tunisia’s US Monastir, Senegal’s Dakar Université Club Basketball (DUC) and Morocco’s Association Sportive Salé (AS Sale), among others. Meanwhile, last week, Cleveland Thomas Jr and Anthony Rashad Walker, two American players who were instrumental in REGs conference games arrived in the country to join their counterparts for playoffs preparations. France based Pierre Thierry Vandriessche is expected to arrive in the country on Saturday. REG will take on Cameroon’s Forces Armées et Police (FAP) Basketball club in the round of eight playoffs of the Basketball Africa League (BAL) that are scheduled to take place at the Kigali Arena in Kigali from May 21-28. FAP finished in 4th place in the recently concluded Nile conference, meaning they have to face the team that finished first in the Sahara Conference. Pack is an experienced coaching who started his career in 2009 where he agreed to become the assistant coach at New Orleans Hornets, which later changed the name to Pelicans. He assumed the same role at Los Angeles Clippers in 2010 and at Oklahoma City Thunder in 2013. In June 2015, Pack returned to the now New Orleans Pelicans as an assistant coach before moving to Washington Wizards in 2018 to assume the same responsibilities.
