After a total of 16 days of games played in the first round of qualifiers across 6 different groups, twelve teams have qualified for the next stage of the Basketball Africa League (BAL) tagged Elite 16.
The twelve teams are GS Pétroliers and AS Police from Group A, AS Nigelec and Abidjan BC from Group B, FAP Basketball and Manga from Group C, Patriots BBC and City Oilers from Group D, Ferroviario de Maputo and University of Zambia Pacers from Group E, and Kenya Ports Authority and Gendarmine from Group F.
The twelve teams will be joined by four wild card teams to complete the sixteen teams that will participate in the next round. They have been groups into East and West Divisions comprising of teams each as follows;
East Division
Kenya Ports Authority
Gendarmine
Patriots BBC
City Oilers
Ferroviario de Maputo
Univ of Zambia Pacers
2 wild card teams
West Division
Abidjan BC
AS Nigelec
FAP Basketball
Manga
AS Police
GS Petroliers
2 wild card teams
Kigali Arena, Rwanda will host the East Division games from 26 November to 1st December while the West Division will be played in Yaounde Cameroon from 17th to 22nd December.
The eight teams in each division will be placed in two groups of four where they will play games in a round-robin format. The top two teams in the group will play against each other in the semi-final games to determine the finalists. The finalists and winner of the third-place game from each division will qualify for the regular season of the league.
They will be joined by the winners of the respective men`s premier basketball leagues in Nigeria, Morrocco, Angola, Tunisia, Senegal, and Egypt. The regular season of the league is scheduled to start in March 2020.
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