ASTANA (Kazakhstan) - History will be made in this city when BC Astana host Sagesse SC on Wednesday night in a battle between ball clubs aching to get their first win in the 2025-26 FIBA WASL-West Asia League.
Game time is set at 20:45 local time at the Saryarka Velodrome but more than the tussle, the fact that it would be the very first WASL game to be played in the country that's making fans beaming with much excitement.
And this is brought about by the major shakeup in the competition system, which saw the Kazakhstan Basketball Championship outfit get included to the Sub-Zone League after being automatically slotted in the Final 8.
For a quick refresher, Astana had been awarded a ticket to the pan-regional competition's culminating event in the first three seasons as the lone representative of Central Asia until the said change prior to this season.
Needless to say, they want to mark their first-ever WASL home game in rousing fashion and that would be by taking care of business against the Green Castle, a team which they actually have some bone to pick with.
The two have met in the Final 8 Group Phase twice and Sagesse came out triumphant on both instances - first a 103-89 victory in 2024 to eventually snare silver, before delivering a 113-90 whipping the following year.
Definitely, Coach Joe Ghattas & Co. would want to make it a hat trick of wins against them, given also the fact that they have already lost two games this season after bowing to Shahrdari Gorgan and Al Riyadi, in that order.
Astana are coming in hoping to get win no. 1 as well after being beaten badly by the Iran Basketball League champions last week in Tehran which enabled the latter to get their second win in as many games.
The Astana-Sagesse bout will be the lone WASL-West Asia game this week as Gorgan's supposed match versus Al Wahda SC has been called off due to the latter's failure to procure the necessary papers to fly to Iran.
The 2025-26 WASL season will then head into a break for the upcoming FIBA Basketball World Cup 2027 Asian Qualifiers' opening window, which is scheduled to take place from November 27 to December 1.
FIBA