Saturday, April 27

Al Ahly SC 94-71 Bangui Sporting Club

Al Ahly SC on Saturday, April 27, beat Central African Republic side Bangui Sporting Club 94-71 to finish at the top of the Nile Conference which closed in Cairo with a 5-1 record.

Four Al Ahly players, led by Prince Ali, scored 10 points or more each to help the BAL holders register another expressive triumph.

It's Al Ahly SC's first conference title since the inception of the BAL season system introduced last year when they finished second to Petro de Luanda.

The Egyptian champions had already secured their playoffs spot in May in Kigali on Friday evening, but they needed to beat Bangui SC to win the conference.

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On the other hand, Bangui could have won the conference with a win by more than 7 points over Al Ahly SC, but they couldn't lose by more than 16 points to finish as one of the two best third-placed teams to advance to the next round.

Patrick Gardner, who helped the Egyptian giants with 10 points and 7 rebounds, insisted their team cohesion was key in their success.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Djimrabaye led Bangui SC with 10 points and 11 rebounds; Kurt Weigscheider and Thierry Darlan finished with 16 and 15 points, respectively, but their contricbution wasn't enough to deny the reigning BAL champions.

Bangui SC (3-3) will now wait for the outcome of the Sahara Conference (May 4-12) in Dakar to find out if their point-differential is good enough to send them to the next round.

Meanwhile, Al Ahly SC and Al Ahly Benghazi of Libya, who finished in second place in Nile Conference, qualified for the playoffs that will take place in Kigali in end May.