BAL4: Nile Conference Preview

BAL4: Nile Conference Preview

Following the exciting Kalahari Conference regular season, the upcoming Nile Conference, is set to take place at the Hassan Moustapha Sports Hall in Cairo, is poised to deliver intense competition. Four teams will vie for victory in this conference, aiming to secure a spot in the post-season scheduled for May in Kigali, Rwanda.

The frontrunners in the group are the reigning BAL champions, Al Ahly Sporting of Cairo. Established in 1930, the club is a prominent component of the Al Ahly Omnisports Club, renowned as the most successful football club globally, boasting 147 titles.

Given this remarkable pedigree, it's unsurprising that the Confederation of African Football gave it the title "African Club of the 20th Century" in 2000. With a legacy of success, the basketball team's management is determined to enhance their achievements further.

In addition to winning the African championship in 2023, the club had previously won the title in 2016, when it was still known as the African Club Championship. The Cairo-based outfit also won the Cup on two occasions, in 1988 and 2001, and the Arab Cup for Champions Clubs in 2021. Their objective, therefore, is to confirm their championship status.

The team has not really undergone much change. It has stuck to a local backbone, with the same mainstays such as Ehab Amin, Amr Gendy and Omar Oraby, to name but a few, and the reinforcement of three American players, and not the least. They replaced the three foreigners from the previous season, including the South Sudanese Nuni Omot.

Mark Lyons, who plied his trade in Israel with Happoel Tel Aviv, Tony Michell, drafted in 2013 with the Pistons and who arrives from Crodolilos de Caracas in Venezuela and, finally,Patrick Gardner, from the G-League with the Long Island Nets, who has the distinctive feature of also being Egyptian and of having played in the qualifiers for Afrobasket 2025 and the World Cup.

"We've prepared well because all the new players have already joined us in Egypt. All the injured players are fit to play. All that's left now is to defend our title in front of our fans." said a confident Ehab Amin.

Over the 2023 season, the team won seven matches and lost just one.

The team lost Chris Crawford, their scorer, and South Sudanese defender Ater Majok. However, they were quick to recruit and brought in two other monsters. But above all, they have renewed their faith in one of Africa's finest playmakers in Solo Diabaté, winner of two editions of the BAL. And if the directors are to be believed, Al Ahly Benghazi are on course to win the title and Solo Diabaté a third laurel.

Uganda's City Oilers have the advantage of being familiar with the competition, unlike Al Ahly Benghazi and Bangui Sporting. They come along with another advantage: the recruitment of a coach who knows African basketball well, having coached the famous NBA Africa Academy for a long time. Karim Nesba is replacing Mendy Jurani, who qualified the team for the Road to BAL.

The new coach is highly confident about his team's qualities:

"Of course, the team is young, but we're going to rely on our speed. With players like Miller and our American duo Patrick Rembert and Randy Culppeper, not forgetting Opong, our aim is to do better than last year."

City Oilers can therefore be expected to cause a stir in this NILE conference.

Finally, Bangui Sporting should have no chance of qualifying unless they can repeat their Road to BAL feat from Yaoundé, where, against all odds, they finished top of their group. This time, there won't be any surprise call. However, they have a mentality of steel, with players such as Evans Ganapamo, who is always effective from outside the box, and Jimmy Djimrabaye, who is always formidable in the paint.

The team has just acquired the services of a very promising youngster, Thierry Darlan, who was playing in the G-League. And like all their partners, they have just one objective: to revive Central African basketball thirty years after HIT Trésor won the title.