Sahara Conference

Sahara Conference

League	Basketball Africa League
Sport	Basketball
Founded	2022
First season	2022
No. of teams	4 (2024–present) 6 (2022–2023)
Venue(s)	Dakar Arena
Most recent champion(s)	Stade Malien (1st title) (2023)
2023 BAL Sahara Conference

The Sahara Conference is one of the three conferences that make up the Basketball Africa League (BAL), the other two being the Nile Conference and the Kalahari Conference. All conferences currently consist of four teams.

The conference alignment began in the 2022 season, although plans to have conferences were already set up before the inaugural season. Named after the Sahara, the conference has been played at a single venue thus far, the Dakar Arena in Dakar, Senegal for the past two seasons.

Venues

Advertisement for the Sahara Conference in 2023

From 2022 to 2024, all games of the Sahara Conference were played at the Dakar Arena located in Dakar.

Current standings

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	GF	GA	GD	PCT	Qualification
1	AS Douanes	2	1	1	0	0	0	.500	Advance to playoffs
2	APR	2	1	1	0	0	0	.500
3	US Monastir	2	0	2	0	0	0	.000	Possibly advance to the playoffs
4	Rivers Hoopers	2	2	0	0	0	0	1.000

First match(es) will be played: 4 May 2024. Source: BAL
Rules for classification: Tiebreakers

Teams

2024 teams

Team	Location	Conference appearances
		AS Douanes	Dakar, Senegal	3
APR	Kigali, Rwanda	1
US Monastir	Monastir, Tunisia	3
Rivers Hoopers	Port Harcourt, Nigeria	1

Conference winners

Although no official trophy or title is awarded, the team ending at the top of the standings in the conference is lauded as "Conference winners" by the BAL.

Sahara Conference results

Season	Winners	Conference record	Playoffs result	Ref.
2022 (Details)	REG (RWA)	4–1 (.800)	Lost in quarter-finals
2023 (Details)	Stade Malien (MLI)	3–2 (.600)	Won third place game

Titles by team

Team	Titles	Season(s) won
REG	1	2022
Stade Malien	1	2023

Standings

^	Denotes team that won the BAL championship
+	Denotes team that lost in the BAL finals
*	Denotes team that qualified for the BAL playoffs

Season	Positions (by team)
	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th
2022	REG* (4–1)	Monastir^ (4–1)	AS Salé* (3–2)	SLAC* (3–2)	Ferroviário (1–4)	DUC (1–4)
2023	Stade Malien* (3–2)	AS Douanes+ (3–2)	REG* (3–2)	ABC Fighters* (3–2)	Monastir (3–2)	Kwara Falcons (0–5)
2024	TBD