The race to reach the 2025 Basketball Africa League (BAL) playoffs is heating up. First, though, there’s a highly anticipated doubleheader in the Nile Conference on Tuesday, May 20, 2025.
After four games, two Nile Conference teams have won their first two games and made visible strides, while the other two have yet to taste victory.
So, what’s at stake on Game Day 3?
In the first game, South Africa’s MBB will take on Kenya’s Nairobi City Thunder. Later, the two undefeated teams, APR and Al Ahli Tripoli, will compete for supremacy in the conference.
This article explores the circumstances that brought these four teams to their current positions in the conference and highlights their statistical differences.
APR v AL AHLI TRIPOLI
These are two teams that have never faced each other in a continental competition before.
The winner of Tuesday’s matchup between APR and Al Ahli Tripoli will improve to 3-0, which is good enough to secure one of the two automatic playoff spots in Pretoria next month.
APR and Al Ahli Tripoli are very close in the standings, making this one of the most unpredictable games of the season.
Al Ahli Tripoli set the record for most points scored in a BAL by defeating Nairobi City Thunder 115–87. They average 101 points per game, four more than APR.
Unlike any other team in the conference, Al Ahli Tripoli never trailed and reached the largest lead — a 47-point advantage against Nairobi City Thunder — among all twelve BAL teams this season.
APR, on the other hand, have found themselves trailing several times, though they were able to retake the lead and remain undefeated.
In their first two games, the Libyan champions averaged 16 three-pointers per game, compared to APR’s 12.
Tripoli has the lowest turnover rate at 13, while APR averaged 16 misplays in the first two games.
APR scored an average of 97.5 points per game, compared to Al Ahly Tripoli’s 101.
In terms of rebounding, APR averaged 49.5 boards per game, compared to Tripoli’s 50.5.
Al Ahli Tripoli’s top scorers are Jean Jacques Boissy (29 ppg), Jaylen Adams (21 ppg), Deon Thompson (16 ppg), Mohamed Sadi (14 ppg), and Nassen Badrush (9.5 ppg).
Aliou Diarra leads APR in scoring with 22.5 points per game. Chasson Randle is second with 15 points per game. Youssoupha Ndoye contributes 17 points per game, and Axel Mpoyo helps the Rwandan champions with nine points per game.
MBB vs CITY THUNDER
In addition to being the first win for either team in the BAL, the winner of the matchup between newcomers MBB and City Thunder will keep their playoff hopes alive in Pretoria.
At this stage in the conference, both MBB and Thunder are facing must-win scenarios, though neither team is facing elimination just yet.
The Thunder are in last place in the four-team Nile Conference, with a daunting 0–2 record and a -57-point differential, compared to MBB’s 0–2 record and -32-point differential.
If the Nile Conference ended with these results, Al Ahli Tripoli and APR would earn the two automatic tickets to the 2025 BAL playoffs, and the last spot would be determined by MBB, Nairobi City Thunder, and FUS Rabat from the Kalahari Conference.
SOURCE: BAL.NBA.COM
