By Orkula Shaagee
Basketball Africa League (BAL) 2024 bronze-medalists Rivers Hoopers will face Union Sportive Monastirienne at the placement tie on Saturday, June 7, ahead of the quarter-finals in Pretoria, South Africa.
According to the Playoffs Team Ranking, the six-time Nigerian League Champions who sealed consecutive Playoffs appearances by finishing second in the Kalahari Conference with a 4-2 mark, were ranked fourth overall on the rankings.
While nine-time Tunisian champions, US Monastir who topped the Sahara Conference standings, were ranked third overall. Both teams finished with identical records for four wins and two losses from their respective conferences.
This will be the fifth meeting between Rivers Hoopers and US Monastir in BAL history, with the previous four meetings evenly split at two wins apiece.
En route to finishing third at BAL Season 4, Rivers Hoopers and US Monastir met three times; twice in the Sahara Conference where both teams won one game each, before the KingsMen knocked out the 2022 champions in an electrifying quarter-final showdown.
Monastir had earlier beaten Rivers Hoopers in their first ever meeting during the Group phase of the inaugural BAL season.
The fifth installment of what has grown to be one of the oldest and fiercest BAL rivalries is billed to take place on Saturday, 7th June, 2025.
Meanwhile, top two teams from each of the three conferences (Sahara, Nile, and Kalahari) qualified for the playoffs, along with the top two third-place teams across the three conferences.
In the Basketball Africa League (BAL), seeding games are played before the playoffs to determine the playoff bracket matchups and seeding for the single-elimination playoffs.