Guinea’s Seydou Legacy Athlétique Club defeated Senegal’s Dakar Université Club 85-70 in the season opener. Both teams had their eyes on the prize claimed by Egypt’s Zamalek in last year’s inaugural season.
The COVID-19 pandemic delayed the BAL’s original 2020 launch date by a year and restricted its games to two weeks in Rwanda’s capital. This season’s 38 scheduled games will extend over three months among Dakar, Kigali and Cairo.
The BAL teams have been split into two conferences: Sahara and Nile. The Sahara teams — from Guinea, Morocco, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal and Tunisia – will compete against each other through March 15 at the Dakar Arena. Nile teams – from Angola, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, South Africa and South Sudan — will play April 9 through 19 at Cairo’s Hassan Mostafa Indoor Sports Complex. Each conference’s top four teams will qualify for the playoffs, with a single-elimination tournament and finals at Kigali Arena May 21 to 28.
The BAL is a joint venture of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the International Basketball Federation (FIBA). It represents the NBA’s first collaboration operating a league outside North America.
