2025 BAL Season: Rivers Hoopers Set For 3rd Appearance; Six New Teams Storm Morocco

The Basketball Africa League (BAL) on Friday, February 28 announced the 12 teams and game schedule for the opening leg of the league’s milestone fifth season – 2025 BAL Season – which will tip off with the Kalahari Conference group phase from Saturday, April 5 to Sunday April 13 at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Sports Complex in Rabat, Morocco.

Nigeria’s Rivers Hoopers are set to compete in another season of the Basketball Africa League (BAL) after their impressive run to the semifinals in the 2024 edition, and eventually winning the bronze.

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The Port Harcourt-based club, who made history as the first Nigerian team to reach the last four of the continental competition, will aim to build on that success in the 2025 BAL Season. With a strong squad and renewed ambition, The KingsMen will look to challenge for the coveted BAL title.

The 2025 BAL season, which will feature three regular-season group phases and culminate with the playoffs and finals at the SunBet Arena in Pretoria, South Africa in June, will feature a record six first-time BAL participants, including the first BAL teams from Cape Verde (Kriol Star Basketball) and Kenya (Nairobi City Thunder), as well as defending champion Petro de Luanda (Angola) and 2022 champion US Monastir (Tunisia).

Petro de Luanda and US Monastir are the only teams to have qualified for all five BAL seasons.

Each conference will play a 12-game group phase, during which each team will face the other three teams in its conference twice. During group phase play, the home team in each country will play on every gameday.

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In the season opener, Stade Malien (Mali) will face Rivers Hoopers (Nigeria) at 4:00 p.m. GMT+1. In the second game, home team Fath Union Sport (FUS; Morocco) will take on Al Ittihad (Egypt) at 7:00 p.m. GMT+1.

Eight teams from across the three conferences will travel to Pretoria for four seeding games followed by an eight-game, single-elimination playoffs and finals from Friday, June 6 – Saturday, June 14.

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