The 2025 Basketball Africa League (BAL) season is scheduled to tip off Saturday, April 5 at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Sports Complex in Rabat, Morocco, with 156 players from a record 28 countries across five continents.
In the season opener, 2023 third-place finisher Stade Malien (Mali) will compete in the league’s milestone fifth season against 2024 third-place finisher Rivers Hoopers (Nigeria) at 4:00 p.m. GMT.
In the second game, home team Fath Union Sport (FUS; Morocco) will take on first-time BAL participant Al Ittihad (Egypt) at 7:00 p.m. GMT.
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BAL will also honour NBA Legend Dikembe Mutombo throughout the season, including featuring a “DM55” patch on all player jerseys and select warm-up gear, as well as moments of silence ahead of each conference group phase.
The late four-time NBA defensive player of the year and Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer served as the NBA’s first global ambassador following his retirement in 2009.
During the 2025 BAL season, each four-team 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, each team will play on every game day, while the Kalahari Conference group phase will take place from Saturday April 5 to Sunday April 13 in Rabat.
The Sahara Conference group phase will take place from Saturday April 26 to Sunday, May 4 at the Dakar Arena in Senegal.
The Nile Conference group phase will take place from Saturday May 17 to Sunday May 25 at BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda.
Eight teams from across the three conferences will travel to Pretoria, South Africa for four seeding games followed by an eight-game, single-elimination playoffs and finals between Friday June 6 and Saturday June 14.
Basketball Africa League also disclosed that rosters are subject to change and will be updated in real-time on the team roster pages at BAL.NBA.com.
