By Christian Okpara
Nigeria’s entry into the 2026 Basketball Africa League (BAL), Rivers Hoopers, have, for the second consecutive season, qualified for the playoffs scheduled for Pretoria, South Africa from June 6 to 14.

They achieved the feat by defeating FUS Rabat 79-71 on Thursday night to move to a 3-1 mark on the Kalahari Conference table.

With two games left to play, the KingsMen are second on the table behind Al-Ittihad of Egypt (4-0), while FUS Rabat sit third with a 1-3 record and Stade Malien on 0-4 mark.

The KingsMen will battle the Egyptian champions for the first place, while FUS and Stade Malien will slug it out for the third spot.

Speaking on his team’s campaign so far, Rivers Hoopers head coach, Ogoh Odaudu, said that he is excited to have qualified for the 2025 BAL Playoffs with two more games to go.

He said: ”It feels really good to qualify for the finals again. It is the highest basketball stage in Africa, and everybody in Africa wants to be there. I am really, really happy that we are there now. We hope to take some time off to celebrate.

”Right from the get-go, our target was to make the playoffs. Now that we have made the playoffs, we are going to get greedy.”

Odaudu added that the current target of the team is to go past their previous record of a third-place finish. ”We came third last year. We are hoping that we are going to go a step further. Everybody wants that for us; they have pushed us, and we want to go a step further than what we did last year.

”Right now we are enjoying the victory of last night and will get back to work this evening.”

Rivers Hoopers will meet Egyptian champions, Al-Ittihad, today by 4.00 p.m.