The race for the BAL Season 4 is back
A total of 19 clubs from all corners of the African continent are registered in the first round of the Road to BAL and will do battle across four cities to determine who makes it to the defining Elite 16.
ABIDJAN (Cote d'Ivoire) - The qualifying campaign for the fourth edition of the Basketball Africa League (BAL) opens on Friday, October 6 with the first round of the Road to BAL campaign and concludes in early November with the Elite 16.
A total of 19 clubs from all corners of the African continent are registered in the first round of the Road to BAL and will do battle across four cities to determine who makes it to the defining Elite 16 round.
ALL GAMES WILL BE STREAMED LIVE ON FIBA's YOUTUBE CHANNEL.
The BAL qualifier consist of East and West Divisions with teams split into Groups A, B, C, D and E.
The two best-placed teams from Groups A and B (West Division) will advance to the Elite 16 while the winners of Groups C, D and E in the East qualify automatically to the next round.
Following the cancellation of Group A, and subsequent classification of Al Ahly Benghazi and FUS Rabat to the next round, the remaining qualifying groups will go ahead in Antananarivo (Madagascar), Yaounde (Cameroon), Gaborone (Botswana) and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania).
Antananarivo in Madagascar is the starting point of the 2023 Road to BAL when Group E gets underway on October 6 with COSPN (Madagascar), Ushindzi Club (Comoros) and Beau Vallon Heat (Seychelles) facing each other for the solo ticket on offer for the next round.
Group B to be held in Yaounde gets underway on Sunday, October and finishes on Tuesday, October 12.
Teams competing in the Cameroonian capital include FAP (Cameroon), Bangui Sporting Club (Central African Republic), Espoir BBC (Gabon), Lamantines (Chad) and ASB Virunga (Democratic Republic of Congo).
Dar es Salaam is home to Group C where Pazi BBC (Tanzania), Kenya Ports Authority (Kenya), Dynamo (Burundi), Sebeta City (Ethiopia) will do battle between October 19-21.
And Botswana's largest city Gaborone will host Group D (October 18-21), which comprises of hosts Dolphins, Brave Hearts (Malawi), Unam Wolves (Namibia), Munali Suns (Zambia) and JBC (Zimbabwe).
So far, teams qualified for the Elite 16 (West Division) include ABC Fighters (Cote d'Ivoire), Al Ahly Benghazi (Libya), FUS Rabat (Morocco), Stade Malien (Mali), and a representative from Guinea.
Teams confirmed in the Elite 16 (East Division) include City Oilers (Uganda), Cape Town Tigers (South Africa), NBA Academy Africa, and Ferroviario da Beira (Mozambique).
FIBA