BAL taking flight in fifth season

It's cold outside, but in the arena the Basketball Africa League playoffs are heating up

- Refiloe Seiboko

The fifth year of the Basketball Africa League (BAL) may be the charm for the continent's premier men's basketball tournament.

After battling Covid-19 disruptions when it was supposed to launch in 2020, the journeyman league appears to be hitting its stride — at least if this year’s playoffs are anything to go by.

By some strange twist in convention, this year Pretoria managed to pry the playoffs and finals from Kigali’s clutches — an unprecedented move given how much sway Rwanda appears to have in the league’s runnings. All four playoffs and finals have been played in East Africa’s swanky BK Arena.

Yet, as fledgling a basketball nation as it may be, South Africa seems to have made quite an impression when it finally got to get in on the action by hosting the Kalahari Conference in March last year. Our signature vibes — punctuated by schoolboy warcries and amapiano performances — may have been what sold the powers that be. That, and of course, having a team to root for in the since-derailed Cape Town Tigers, who made the semi-finals but lost out on achieving third place overall.