Basketball Africa League Final in Rwanda: Notes and Commentaries

In the past few years, The Basketball Africa League (BAL) games in Kigali, Rwanda have always been scintillating and this year’s edition really lived up to its hype and billing from the first game.

The Basketball Africa League which is better known as BAL is a professional league featuring 12 club teams from across the African Continent is a partnership between the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) and the NBA. The top eight teams in this year’s BAL were Al Ahly Ly of Libya, Al Ahly SC of Egypt, AS Douanes of Senegal, Cape Town Tigers of South Africa, FUS Rabat of Morocco, Petro de Luanda of Angola, Rivers Hoopers of Nigeria and US Monastir of Tunisia.

Petro de Luanda beat Al Ahly Ly 107-94 on Saturday, June 1, 2024 at the BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda; to win the 2024 Basketball Africa League title. It was Petro de Luanda’s first continental title since winning the 2015 FIBA Africa Champions Cup in the capital of Luanda. The Angolan champions trailed 52-40 at the break but managed to turn things around in the third quarter to end Al Ahly Ly’s three-game winning streak in the postseason. With the win, Petro de Luanda earned the right to represent Africa at the next FIBA InterContinental Cup next in Singapore from 12-15 September 2024.

The third-place game was held on Friday, May 31, 2024 and it was between Nigeria’s Rivers Hoopers and South Africa’s Cape Town Tigers which the team from Rivers State won by 80-57. The top 8 teams slugged it out in the final stage of BAL 4 in Kigali with the first game taking place on Friday, May 24, 2024.
For each final leg of the BAL tourney in Rwanda, there has been a drastic improvement from the previous edition. This year’s edition ticked all the right boxes from the teams; the