The 2021 BAL Finals was the championship game of the inaugural season of the

Basketball Africa League The Basketball Africa League (BAL) is Africa's premier men's basketball league. The league consists of twelve teams, each qualified through their domestic competition, similar to the format of the UEFA Champions League. The league is a joint eff ...

(BAL). The final was played in the

Kigali Arena BK Arena (formerly known as Kigali Arena until 2022) is an multi-purpose indoor arena in Kigali, Rwanda, used mostly for basketball and volleyball matches. Built and finished in 2019, it hosts sporting events and concerts. It is the biggest ind ...

in Kigali on 30 May 2021. The game was played between Egyptian club

Zamalek Zamalek ( ar, الزمالك , ''al zamalek'') is an affluent district of western Cairo encompassing the northern portion of Gezira Island in the Nile River. The island is connected with the river banks through three bridges each on the east ...

and Tunisian club US Monastir. Due to

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

regulations, attendance in the arena was limited and 1,789 people were present. Zamalek defeated Tunisian side Monastir 76–63 to win its first BAL championship and second African championship, having won the 1992 continental title. As such, the team qualified for the

2021 FIBA Intercontinental Cup The 2021 FIBA Intercontinental Cup was the 30th edition of the FIBA Intercontinental Cup. The tournament was played in one game to be held on 6 February 2021. The game was played in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Both teams made their debut in the Interc ...

. Zamalek's

Walter Hodge Walter Wallace Hodge Muñoz (born September 21, 1986) is a Puerto Ricans, Puerto Rican-U.S. Virgin Islander professional basketball player who plays for Al Ahly (basketball), Al Ahly of the Egyptian Basketball Super League. Internationally, Hodge ...

was named league MVP after the final.

Teams

Venue

On 1 August 2019, the

, built and opened in 2019, was announced as host of the Final Four of the BAL tournament. The arena has a capacity for approximately 10,000 people and hosted the

AfroBasket 2021 FIBA AfroBasket 2021 was the 30th edition of the FIBA AfroBasket, a men's basketball continental championship of Africa. The tournament was hosted by Rwanda for the first time. It was originally scheduled to take place between 17 and 29 August 20 ...

qualifiers and Rwandan National Basketball League before. The format of the league was later changed and the entire season was eventually played in Kigali. Due to the

, attendance was limited and all spectators had to follow

social distancing In public health, social distancing, also called physical distancing, (NB. Regula Venske is president of the PEN Centre Germany.) is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures intended to prevent the spread of a contagious dis ...

rules.

Background

US Monastir

US Monastir won the Pro A in 2019, to qualify for the inaugural BAL season. The team has also won the championship in 2020 and won the 2020–21 season on 27 April 2021, after defeating rivals

Ezzahra Sports Ezzahra Sports ( ar, الزهراء الرياضية), or EZS, is a Tunisian professional basketball club from Ezzahra. The club competes in the Championnat National A, the domestic first tier. Home games are played in the Ezzahra Arena. History ...

in the finals. to achieve a total of 6 titles in the league. On April 12, 2021, the team signed

Mounir Ben Slimane Mounir Ben Slimane () is a Tunisian professional basketball coach. He was the head coach of the United Arab Emirates national basketball team, whom he coached the UAE at the 2009 FIBA Asia Championship in China. He also is the current technical di ...

as its new head coach. In 2014, Monastir made its debut in the FIBA Africa Club Championship, Africa's top continental league, for the first time. In 2017, the club ended at third place in the continental league.Africa Champions Cup
/ref> The Monastir team featured seven players who were also members of the Tunisian national team. During the BAL, the team impressed in the group stage by beating all its opponents and being the only team to achieve more than 100 points in a single game as they beat GNBC of Madagascar by 113 to 66. They qualified as the first seed to the play-offs and were deemed as "favourites" for the title prior to the league start by ''

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

''.

Zamalek

Zamalek won the Egyptian Super League in 2019, its first title in 11 years, to qualify for the inaugural BAL season. In the 1990s, the club had been successful at the continental level as well with a

FIBA Africa Basketball League The FIBA Africa Basketball League (formerly named the FIBA Africa Clubs Champions Cup) was the highest caliber men's professional basketball competition for clubs until 2020, organized by the FIBA Africa and played by the champions of the league ...

title in 1992 and a lost final in 1998. Adding up appearances in the former FIBA competition, this was Zamalek's fifth continental final. It was the first season under Spanish head coach Augustí Julbe, who arrived from

Gran Canaria Gran Canaria (, ; ), also Grand Canary Island, is the third-largest and second-most-populous island of the Canary Islands, an archipelago off the Atlantic coast of Northwest Africa which is part of Spain. the island had a population of that ...

. At the moment of playing in the BAL, Zamalek was still active in the semifinals of the 2020–21 Egyptian League. Ahead of the season, the team strengthened itself with Michael Fakuade, Mouloukou Diabate and Chinemelu Elonu. The team played impressive in the group stage, beating all three opponents to go into the playoffs as the second seed.

Road to the finals

Game

References

{{2021 BAL season May 2021 sports events in Africa

Final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: * Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of con ...

Sport in Kigali