AL Ahly Benghazi is one of the teams making their debut in Season 4 of the Basketball Africa League (BAL). The Big Tip shares some insights on the North African club ahead of the BAL.
Club: Al Ahly Benghazi
Country: Libya
History: The seventy-four-year-old Benghazi-based club have enjoyed some success in spurts in the Libyan basketball circuit. The Butchers have three Libiyan Basketball League championships to their name, two Libyan Super Cup titles and two Arab Club Basketball Championship trophies to their name.
They are not new to the continental scene, having made three FIBA Africa Clubs Championships Cup appearances and finished eighth in 2013.
Al Ahly has also won back-to-back (2012 and 2013) Arab Club Championships.
Route To BAL: During last year’s Road To BAL Division West, Al Ahly had to beat Cameroon’s FAP 93-84 to qualify for the BAL.
Coach: Benghazi recently signed Serbian coach Ivan Jeremic. The 62-year-old’s coaching career began in the youth teams of Serbian club Crevna Zvezda.
Jeremic has had more success as an assistant coach in Russia, winning EuroCups with Unics Kazan and Lokomotiv Kuban. He won four Russian League titles, two Russian Cup trophies with CSKA Moscow and a VTB League title with the same club.
As coach of Al Nasr in Bahrain, he won a league and cup title.
Star Player: Cote D’Ivoire’s Solo Diabate is one of the continent’s finest point guards. A player with three FIBA World Cup appearances and two AfroBasket Silver medals and had a long career in Europe.
Going into the latter stages of his career, Diabate has enjoyed success at the club level.
The point guard has won two Basketball Africa League titles with Zamalek (Egypt) and US Monastir Tunisia. He has also won league and cup titles with US Monastir and Petro de Luanda.
In Benghazi’s Road To BAL campaign, Diabate had an 18.3 efficiency rating. And he averaged 13.5 points per game and 6.8 assists per game.
With the solid veteran experience of Diabate, and quality addition to the team Al Ahli could have a good trajectory in the BAL.
