BANGUI Sporting Club heads into Season 4 of the Basketball Africa League (BAL) and will look to turn heads in their debut season. The Big Tip Off previews Bangui ahead of the BAL.
Team: Bangui Sporting Club
Country: Central African Republic (CAR)
History: The Central African side was founded in 2017 and was previously known as GIBA-BCAG until 2022. Founded by former national team player Cyrille Damango, the Bangui Club, who are based in CAR’s capital city (Bangui), has built a good history. The team plays in the Bangui Basketball League, where they were runners-up in 2021. Their crowning moment first came in 2022, and they repeated that feat the following year. Despite being a relatively new team, they already established themselves as a powerhouse in Central Africa.
Route to BAL: After defending their national championship, they headed to Yaoundé, Cameroon, for the Road To BAL Division West qualifiers. They did not have the best of starts, losing to the Gabonese side Espoir. Eventually, they (Bangui) would bounce back in the group stages. Bangui would eventually claim the Division West title, which booked their spot in the fourth edition of the BAL.
Coach: Australian coach Liz Mills will lead Bangui Sporting in their quest to make a name for themselves on the continent. Teams led by Mills have gone past the first round in the BAL, so Bangui is in good hands. Hopefully, in the process, she can turn them into a contender. Mills, a former coach of Kenya and Zambia, has led AS Salé (Morocco) and ABC Fighters (Cote D’Ivoire) in the last two instalments of the BAL. She is not afraid to bet on African talent, as was the case when she led ABC to last year’s BAL playoffs.
Star player: Evans Ganapamo is the star player for the Bangui side. He has already donned the national team colours and is playing in the BAL for a club from his home country for the first time. In the past two instalments of the BAL he played with the Cape Town Tigers of South Africa. During the Road to BAL qualifiers with Bangui, he established himself as one of the best scorers on the continent, averaging 17.8ppg in the West Division. He will be looking to lead his team to silverware whilst becoming a household name on the continent.
Looking forward to the season!Go BAL
Great read. Interesting that players in the BAL have played in SA