The 2023 BAL season, also known as BAL Season 3, is the third 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 season began on 11 March 2023 and will end on 27 May 2023, with the playoffs and finals being played in the BK Arena in Kigali, which hosts the finals for a third season in a row. The regular season is played in

Dakar Dakar ( ; ; wo, Ndakaaru) (from :wo:daqaar, daqaar ''tamarind''), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Senegal, largest city of Senegal. The city of Dakar proper has a population of 1,030,594, whereas the population of the Dakar ...

Senegal Senegal,; Wolof: ''Senegaal''; Pulaar: 𞤅𞤫𞤲𞤫𞤺𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭 (Senegaali); Arabic: السنغال ''As-Sinighal'') officially the Republic of Senegal,; Wolof: ''Réewum Senegaal''; Pulaar : 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 ...

(Sahara Conference) and

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

(Nile Conference) for a second year in a row. The qualification games for the season, the

Road to BAL The Road to BAL, also known as the BAL Qualifying Tournaments, are the qualifying tournaments of the Basketball Africa League (BAL). The organization of the qualifiers is in hands of FIBA Africa. The first qualifying rounds were held on 16 October ...

, began on 11 October 2022. The winners of the 2023 BAL season will automatically qualify for the 2023 FIBA Intercontinental Cup Singapore. US Monastir are the defending champions, having won their first title in the previous season.

Qualification

The first round of the qualifying stage consists of 20 teams that play in four groups of five, each held in different cities. In the Elite 16, the teams are joined by 6 teams that qualified during the previous 2022 BAL qualification. Two groups of five teams are played to determine the six teams that advance to the main tournament. On 21 September 2021,

FIBA Africa FIBA Africa is a zone within the FIBA basketball association which contains all 54 national African FIBA federations. It was founded in 1961. FIBA Africa maintains offices in Cairo and in Abidjan. Members FIBA World Rankings Overview ...

announced the 26 teams in the qualifying tournaments as well as the six countries that would qualify directly.

East Division

Group phase

Elite 16

Final round

East Division

Group phase

Elite 16

Final round

Teams

Petro de Luanda was the first team to qualify for the season when it won the Angolan League on 10 May 2022. The last qualifed team was

City Oilers City Oilers is a basketball club based in Lugogo, Kampala, Uganda. The team competes in the Ugandan National Basketball League (NBL), where it has won eight championships, the most in league history. The Oilers play in the Basketball Africa League ...

who captured the third place in the

East Division on 27 November 2022. The twelve teams of the 2023 BAL season were officially confirmed on 13 February 2023. After an absence of a Nigerian representative in the 2022 season due to FIBA's punishment of the

Nigeria Basketball Federation The Nigerian Basketball Federation (NBBF) is the governing body for men's and women's basketball in Nigeria. NBBF has been an affiliate of FIBA Africa since 1963, and its offices are located in Abuja and Lagos. FIBA competitions The senior men's ...

, Kwara Falcons was directly qualified as winners of the

Nigerian Premier League The Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) is the highest level of the Nigerian football league system, for the Nigerian club-football championships. The Nigerian league has suffered, like many others, from the financial impact and dwind ...

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, Kwara Falcons,

ABC Fighters Abidjan Basket Club Fighters, commonly known as ABC Fighters, is an Ivorian basketball club based in the city of Abidjan. Founded in 1997, the team is the most successful men teams in the country, with 19 national championships won, and one contin ...

and Stade Malien will make their debut in the competition. ABC Fighters is the first team from Ivory Coast to play in the BAL, while

is the first team from

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sou ...

. Two teams, defending champions US Monastir and runners-up Petro de Luanda, appear in their third consecutive season.

Personnel and sponsorship

Augustí Julbe of

was the only coach this season to already have won a BAL championship, as he won the

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October 2021 coup in Sudan; Crowd shortly after t ...

title with

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 ...

Foreign and Elevate players

Each BAL team was allowed to have four foreign players on its roster, including only two non-African players. Players in ''italics'' were signed only for the

playoffs The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eit ...

. If players have multiple nationalities, the nationality of an African nation is shown. Each team also featured one player from the NBA Academy Africa, under the BAL Elevate program. The players were drafted in an online meeting by the teams and the official list were announced on 28 February 2023.

Pre-season

The league hosted their official second BAL Combine on 15 and 16 January 2023 at The One Ball Training Center in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

. The combine featured 30 players and was directed by former NBA head coach

Quin Snyder Quin Price Snyder (born October 30, 1966) is an American basketball coach who most recently served as the head coach for the Utah Jazz of the National Basketball Association (NBA). After being named a McDonald's All American as a high school pla ...

. US Monastir, as champions of the

2022 BAL season The 2022 BAL season, also known as BAL Season 2, was the second season of the Basketball Africa League (BAL). The season began on 2 March 2022 and ended with the Finals on 28 May 2022. The group phase was played in the Dakar Arena in Dakar and ...

, participated in the

2023 FIBA Intercontinental Cup The 2023 FIBA Intercontinental Cup was the 32nd edition of the FIBA Intercontinental Cup. The tournament was held on 10 and 12 February 2023 in San Cristóbal de La Laguna, on the Spanish island of Tenerife. It was the third time that the tournam ...

. It was the second time a BAL team participated in the

FIBA Intercontinental Cup The FIBA Intercontinental Cup, also commonly referred to as the FIBA World Cup for Champion Clubs, or the FIBA Club World Cup, is a professional basketball clubs competition that is endorsed by FIBA and the NBA. Historically, its purpose has b ...

. In the competition, played in February and hosted in

La Laguna LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure ...

in Spain, Monastir finished fourth after two losses against

CB Canarias Club Cantera Base 1939 Canarias S.A.D., commonly known as CB Canarias and known as Lenovo Tenerife for sponsorship reasons, is a professional basketball team that is based in San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain. Domestically, the team pl ...

and

Rio Grande Valley Vipers The Rio Grande Valley Vipers are an American professional basketball team of the NBA G League based in Edinburg, Texas, and are affiliated with the Houston Rockets. The Vipers play their home games at the Bert Ogden Arena. The Vipers have won fo ...

. ''

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 ...

'' tipped Petro de Luanda, last year's runners-up, as the title favourites in their annual season preview.

Schedule

The schedule for the 2023 season was officially released on 13 February 2023.

Regular season

The regular season is played from 11 March to 6 May 2023. The twelve teams are divided into two conferences of six teams each. Teams in each group play each other one time, whereafter the top four teams advance to the playoffs.

Sahara Conference

The games of the Sahara Conference were played from 11 March to 21 March 2023 and were hosted in the Dakar Arena in

for a second consecutive season. Stade Malien finished as Conference winner, due to their head-to-head point difference that determined the ranking of five teams with a 3–2 record. The defending BAL champions, US Monastir, missed the playoffs after they lost on the last game day.

Nile Conference

The games of the Nile Conference will be played from 26 April to 6 May 2023 and will be played in the

Hassan Moustafa Sports Hall The Hassan Moustafa Sports Hall ( ar, صالة الدكتور حسن مصطفى بـ 6) is a multi-purpose arena in 6th of October City, Cairo, Egypt. History The hall was opened in 2020 as the 6 October Sports Hall. It was constructed to serve a ...

in 6th of October,

Standings

Games

---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Playoffs

The playoffs will be held from 21 May to 27 May 2023 in the BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda for the third consecutive season.

Bracket

Quarterfinals

Semifinals

Third place game

Finals

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2023, BAL season

BAL Bal may refer to: * Bal (surname), a Dutch, Indian, and Turkish surname * Bal, Iran (disambiguation) * Bal, Zira, a village in Punjab, India * ''Bal'' (film), a 2010 Turkish film * Bäl, a settlement on the Swedish island of Gotland * 8678 Bä ...

2022–23 in basketball leagues Basketball Africa League seasons