Who can stop Al Ahly SC in the 2024 Nile Conference?

The BAL season 4 resumes this week with the Nile Conference in Cairo where four teams will battle to advance to the Playoffs in May in Kigali.
 
For the third straight season, the BAL makes a stop in the Egyptian capital, a battleground where local teams have built a reputation of being able to successfully protect their homecourt against visitors from other parts of Africa.
 
Well, not always. Petro de Luanda proved doubters wrong last year and topped the conference with a flawless 5-0 mark including a nail-biting 91-90 win over Al Ahly SC.
 
In the run-up to this year’s Nile Conference, the most frequently asked question is: Who can stop Al Ahly SC?
 
As much as analysts and fans continue to pick Al Ahly as potential winners of the conference, only three teams - Libya’s Al Ahly Ly, Uganda’s City Oilers and Central African Republic’s Bangui Sporting Club – will have a final say over the next eight days.
 
Here's everything to know about the 2024 Nile Conference:

The four teams will play each other twice from Friday, April 19 to 27 at Hassan Mostafa Indoor Sports Complex in Cairo.
 
There will be twelve games with three rest days – 21, 23 and 25 April – in the process.
 
The clash between Al Ahly Ly and Bangui Sporting Club will mark the start of the conference, but it’s the mouth-watering series between Al Ahly SC and Al Ahly Ly that dominates the BAL conversations.
 
To extend their season beyond April 27, teams must finish in the top-two places of the conference or compete for one of the two best third-placed teams from across the three conferences.
 
Both Al Ahly SC and City Oilers are returning to the league for the second straight time while Al Ahly Ly and Bangui Sporting Club are making their debut in the league.
 
Find below a closer into the four Nile Conference contenders.
 
Al Ahly SC

Back-to-back winners of the Egyptian Super League, Al Ahly SC are the current BAL reigning champions, having won the league with a remarkable 7-1 mark.
 
The team is led by Spanish head coach Agusti Julbe, who led Zamalek to the 2021 BAL title, making him the only coach to win the league twice.
 
Although last year’s BAL MVP Nuni Omot left, Julbe has kept the core of the team, including Ehab Amin, Omar Oraby, Amr Gendy and Marwan Sarhan.
 
In addition to former Zamalek power forward Moustafa Elmekawi, who reunited with Julbe, the Egyptian champions brought in lethal scorer Mark Lyons, Tony Mitchell Jr and Egyptian-American Patrick Gardner.
 
“It’s a solid group of players,” Julbe said.
 
Al Ahly SC hold a 4-1 home record dating back to last season.
 
City Oilers

When the Ugandan champions debuted in the BAL last season, they showed a spirited attitude, but a 1-4 mark in the Nile Conference wasn’t good enough to send them through to the Playoffs.
 
Now, City Oilers shooting guard Tonny Drileba insists that the team must instil a new mindset and do better this time around.
 
“We have to make it to Kigali,” Drileba said in an exclusive chat with bal.nba.com.
 
“Last year didn’t do as well as we’d hoped to. We went back to the drawing board and added the pieces that we felt we needed. Now, going into this [season], even with a different coach, we are definitely more prepared to play this time,” he added.
 
It's the Oilers’ intention of making it to Kigali that encouraged them to try the free-agency market where they recruited Karim Nesba as head coach, they lured scorer Patrick Rembert, re-signed Dane Miller Jr and welcomed teen sensation Khaman Maluach.
 
The Oilers, Drileba noted, have taken positives from their BAL debut last year.
 
“The competition is much higher. It was our first season, and we didn’t really know much of what to expect…every mistake is punished out here if you are not ready. If you miss rebounds you get punished; if you miss free-throws you get punished… We just need to get to that level where our efficiency is high, our level of competition is high, how we lock in is different, everything has to change.”
 
Al Ahly Ly

In a matter of four months since they clinched one of the BAL qualifying tickets, the Libyan champions have built a relatively new team.
 
The BAL first-timers’ revamp began with the hiring of  Serbian play-caller Ivan Jeremic, who at some point in his career – served as assistant coach to legendary FIBA Hall of Famer Dusan Ivkovic.   
 
Two South Sudanese – Majok Deng and Lual Acuil – fronted the new signings list, which also included Kevin Murphy and Pierre Jackson.
 
Souleyman Diabate – a two-time BAL champion with Zamalek and US Monastir - returns for his fourth season, and joins two Libyan internationals Ghayth Almaghribi and Sofian Hamad.
Deng says he was encouraged because last year’s MVP “Nuni Omot and some of my national team teammates played in the BAL before. To be part of it, it’s a blessing. In our team, we have good talents and we are going to be able to compete. Every team is here to win it, and I back my team for sure.”
 
Bangui Sporting Club
 

“Our goal is simple. We are trying to go game by game. We are trying to make it to the playoffs first, and from there, we are going to try to win the BAL,” said a confident Kurt Curry Wegcheider, one of the new signings of the Bangui-based side.
 
The team is coached by Francois Enyengue, who led Cameroon’s FAP to the 2022 BAL semi-finals.
 
“Just because it’s our first time here… we are going to prove to people that we’re a great team. We are on a mission, we are hungry than anybody else,” Wegcheider pointed out.