malvernmugadzikwa
Zimpapers Sports Hub
QUALIFIERS for the Basketball Africa League (BAL) 2025, known as the Road to BAL, will start next month and end in December.
BAL is the continent’s biggest basketball league.
Dates and venues for the qualifiers are yet to be announced, but most of the participants have begun fine-tuning their preparations.
Some teams have already booked their tickets to Africa’s clubs premier basketball competition, while others are still slugging it out in their respective leagues to determine who joins the lot when the opening whistle sounds in a couple of weeks.
Among those that have booked their tickets are Faith Union Sport (FUS) Rabat of Morocco, Abidjan Basketball Club (ABC) of Cote d’Ivoire, Boufarik (Algeria), KSA de Douala (Cameroon), Al-Ahly Tripoli (Libya), Nairobi City Thunder (Kenya), Matero Magic (Zambia) and Zimbabwe’s Basket
Hounds.
According to FIBA rules and the BAL format, the champions of Angola, Egypt, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Tunisia qualify automatically for the main competition, while the rest of the continent’s basketball nations have to go through a rigorous qualifying process.
The process, known as the Road to BAL, involves two main stages — the opening phase and the “Elite 16”.
After these stages, only six teams enter the main contest.
By virtue of winning the Basketball Union of Zimbabwe National League, Basket Hounds earned the right to represent the country at next month’s opening rounds.
“We are excited for BAL, me and the boys, and have been training for a couple of months in the lead-up to the qualifiers,” said Basket Hounds coach Tawanda Russell Nemutambwa.
“The early stages of our preparations mostly involved individual workouts, video analysis and some strength and conditioning. I have been doing my own personal research on some of our probable opponents, scouting for talent so that we beef up our team.”
Debutants in the Harare Basketball League Super Six, Basket Hounds are venturing into unknown territory as they are set to become only the third Zimbabwe representatives in the qualifying stages of the BAL.
Mercenaries and Harare powerhouses JBC have already tried and failed. JBC went as far as the “Elite 16” stage last year.
Nemutambwa is optimistic of a good run this time around.
“We haven’t lost any of the players who won us the National League, so that is a good thing,” he said.
“The trick now is to bolster the squad and we already have three key additions.
“We also have a lot of foreign-based players whom we are looking at, and all that is left is to strike the right deals with the right players.
“I cannot fully release any names as talks are currently taking place, but we will have a few foreign-based players to give us the size advantage and the experience of playing at this level.”
Basket Hounds regroup for camp and team training this week to commence the final lap of their preparations.
“We group for training next week (this week) and plan to use the month of August to work on team chemistry and the more technical stuff.
“Hopefully, we can play a tournament or two by the end of the month, but there are a host of friendly matches lined up for the first weeks of September,” he said.
Online Reporter