African basketball news: the BAL, AfroBasket and Ghana
Reports on the continental game: the Basketball Africa League and its qualifiers, AfroBasket windows, African clubs and the players they produce.
The continental stage seen from Ghana
The Basketball Africa League, run by the NBA and FIBA, is the continent's top club competition. Ghanaian champions enter its qualifiers like every other national champion, and the reports on this desk follow the league, its prize money and the clubs that reach it, with an eye on how close a Ghanaian side gets.
National-team basketball runs through AfroBasket and its qualifying windows. Those windows decide who reaches the continental championship, and in recent seasons they have also been shaped by disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic, when positive tests forced games to be called off.
Clubs, youth tournaments and rising players
Beyond the headline competitions, the desk covers the zone tournaments where clubs earn a place on the African stage, the youth championships where national teams meet for the first time, and the young players whose names travel from those tournaments to clubs in Europe and the US.
Results and figures are given as they were reported at the time, with the date of the report, so a qualifying table or a prize figure can always be read against the season it belongs to.
How a Ghanaian club reaches the continent
For a Ghanaian club the road to the continent starts with the national title. The champions enter the qualifying rounds of the Basketball Africa League, known as the Road to BAL, alongside the champions of other FIBA Africa member countries. In 2019 Ghana's champions, Braves of Customs, played those qualifiers and were eliminated before the first season.
National teams follow a similar ladder through AfroBasket qualifying windows, played in host cities over a few days, and the youth championships at under-16 and under-18 level that feed the senior teams. Each report gives the scores and venues as they stood on the day, so one team can be followed through a whole window.
Stories on file
The reports below run from Al Ahly's return to the continental stage through a zone tournament in 2018, to the young Malian guard Siriman Kanouté, who was already scoring heavily for his country's youth teams that year, to the qualification window in Monastir in February 2021, when positive COVID-19 tests in the Uganda squad stopped the games. Youth championships are covered too: in 2019 Egypt beat Angola to reach the final of the U16 women's African championship in Kigali, where Mali won the title.
The league most of these stories lead to is covered in the report on the Basketball Africa League prize money: $150,000 for the first champion, and a first season pushed from 2020 to Kigali in May 2021.
Scores from the tournaments
The club report from October 2018 records the margin: Al Ahly of Egypt beat Smouha 68-67 in Dar es Salaam to win the FIBA Africa Zone 5 qualifiers and return to the continental club competition after a year away. The youth reports carry their own numbers. Siriman Kanouté, a 16-year-old Malian point guard, closed the summer of 2018 with a second continental MVP award and the scoring lead at the Under-17 World Cup, and in Kigali in 2019 Egypt knocked out the favourites Angola 71-50 in the U16 women's semi-finals before meeting the defending champions Mali.
The February 2021 report from Monastir shows how fragile a qualifying window can be: five members of Uganda's squad tested positive for COVID-19, and FIBA postponed all of Uganda's games in that round of AfroBasket 2021 qualifying.
Host cities across the continent
The stories on this desk were filed from Dar es Salaam, Bamako, Kigali and Monastir, and the Basketball Africa League itself settled on Kigali for its first season, where Zamalek became the first champion. Each report keeps its city and date, so the desk reads as a map of where African basketball was played in a given season and how far each competition sits from the courts in Accra and Kumasi. For a Ghanaian club or national team, those cities mark the distance still to travel: the qualifiers come first, and each report shows who made it through and by what margin.
All African basketball stories
Monastir —
Five Uganda players test positive, AfroBasket qualifiers suspended
Five members of Uganda's national team tested positive for COVID-19 in February 2021, and FIBA postponed all of Uganda's games in the AfroBasket 2021 qualifiers in Monastir.
Accra —
Basketball Africa League prize money for the winner, seen from Ghana
Basketball Africa League prize money has a figure: the club that wins the first season will pocket $150,000.
Kigali —
Egypt shock Angola to set up an Under-16 women's final against Mali
Egypt knocked out tournament favorites Angola 71-50 in the semi-finals of the 2019 FIBA U16 Women's African Championship and earned a final against defending champions Mali.
Dar es Salaam —
Al Ahly win Zone 5 and return to the African club stage in 2018
Al Ahly of Egypt won the FIBA Africa Zone 5 qualifiers in October 2018 by a single point over Smouha, earning a return to Africa's top club competition after a year away.
Bamako —
Siriman Kanouté, the Mali guard tipped as Africa's next big star
Siriman Kanouté, a 16-year-old point guard from Mali, closed the summer of 2018 with a second continental MVP award and the scoring lead at the Under-17 World Cup.