BEIRUT (Lebanon) - The FIBA Regional Office-Asia on Friday, May 8, has confirmed that Malaysia will play host to the Basketball Champions League Asia-East (BCL Asia-East) 2026 Final 6 on May 19-24.
The culminating showpiece of the league that serves as a qualifier to BCL Asia 2026, the continent's highest club competition, will be played at the Arena Larkin Indoor Stadium in the city of Johor Bahru.
The schedule is as follows:
Malaysia have been playing in BCL Asia events since the BCL Asia Qualifiers in 2024 but it is only now that they will be hosting the Final Phase of the tilt featuring champion clubs from the East and South East regions.
Yet it won't be their first time handling such a prestigious event.
The country has a long history of hosting FIBA tournaments, the most recent of which was the FIBA U16 Women's Asia Cup Divisions A and B just last year, held at the newly built Karisma Arena in Seremban.
Hosting FIBA club contests is nothing new to them, too. With the Malaysian Basketball Association (MABA) leading the way, they have hosted the FIBA Asia Champions Cup - the precursor to BCL Asia - multiple times.
The last time was in 2003 at the MABA Stadium in Kuala Lumpur, which witnessed Al Wahda of Syria beat Qatar's Al Rayyan in the Final to complete a 6-game sweep of the tourney and take home the gold medal.
Over 20 years later and a BCL Asia event has reached Malaysian shores again, marking yet another milestone for the nation's rich basketball culture, which includes 18 appearances thus far in the continental tilt.
The last time that a Malaysian team reached the BCL Asia proper was in 2024, when the NS Matrix Deers booked their ticket by being one of the top two finishers of the BCL Asia Qualifiers, the other being Pelita Jaya.
This year's edition of the BCL Asia-East opted to veer away from the Final 4 and went with the Final 6 as the competition structure was upgraded to ensure tougher, more intense battles on the road to the crown.
The top 3 teams from each group in the Group Phase will advance to the Final 6, where the teams will be drawn once again into two groups for the Preliminary Round, to be played from May 19 to 21.
The top 4 teams will then head to the cross-over Semi-Finals on May 23. Teams entering the Final on the 24th, subject to not more than one team from each National Federation, will qualify for the BCL Asia 2026.
FIBA