Angola’s capital city named host of this year’s FIBA Afrocan tournament

Luanda, the commercial capital of Angola has been confirmed as the host city of the 2023 FIBA AfroCan.

Angola becomes the second country to organise the competition since Mali hosted the inaugural edition of the FIBA AfroCan in 2019.

This year’s edition will take place from July 8 to 16.

FIBA AfroCan is a 12-nation and quadrennial continental competition aimed at home-based players. Except for the teams that reached the Semi-Finals of the last edition of the tournament, the remaining eight teams qualify through regional qualifiers from all FIBA Africa seven zones.

FIBA Africa President Anibal Manave praised Angola for the country’s hosting experience and capabilities and encouraged the Southern African country to do its best to make the 2023 FIBA AfroCan a successful event.

“AfroCan is a huge part of our strategy,” Manave said, adding: “It allows national federations to get organised and give new basketball talents a chance to play at a high level at some point in their careers. “I would like to wish Angola good luck, and a good  organisation of this event, and let Angola be Angola. They are good hosts; They are a

well-organised country and this is important for FIBA Africa strategy.”

Teams that qualified for this year’s FIBA AfroCan, so far, including reigning champions DR Congo, Kenya who finished second in 2019, Angola who finished third and Morocco.

Angolan Basketball Federation (FAB) President Jose Moniz welcomed FIBA Africa’s decision to his country the hosting rights of the event.

“It’s important for us to organise such an event because as a Federation we have been working extremely hard in youth basketball programs,”

Moniz explained.

“Our objective is to keep our youth basketball programs active. We have several infrastructures that we must put to public usage, and

this is a great opportunity to do so. We have quality venues in Malanje, Namibe, Huila and Benguela. We hope to take a competition

like this to places outside of the capital.”

It remains to be seen if FAB will concentrate the 2023 FIBA AfroCan in Luanda or add another host province.

“We hope to give a positive response to FIBA Africa President’s encouragement of trying to organise this event across two different

provinces,” said FAB vice president Silvio Lemos. “We have the logistic capacity to organise this event. In partnership with the Angolan

government we’ll evaluate which other province can meet the demands of this competition,” Lemos stressed.

In 2019 edition held at Palais des Sports Salamatou Maiga in the Malian capital city of Bamako, The Democratic Republic of Congo won

the maiden edition of FIBA AfroCan after seeing off Kenya 82-61. The Congolese opened an 11-point lead after first period but the

Kenyan rallied back in the second period winning by 19-7 points to gain a point lead at halftime 37-36 points.

DR Congo charged back in the third quarter winning by 29-10 points to take the game out of the reach of the Kenyans.

The fourth period was no different as DR Congo gained another three-point lead (17-14) for a final score of 82-61 points to be

crowned champion.

Maxi Shamba who sparked the Congolese came up with a team-high 20 points, and 7 rebounds.

Three of his teammates recorded double-figure as follows: Evariste Shonganya (18), Rolly Fula Nganga (15) and Jordan Sakho (10).

On the other side, Kenya’s Tylor Ongwae proved crucial for Kenya but his game-high 21 points were not enough to avoid his team’s defeat.

Shamba was elected Most Valuable Player of the tournament, headlining the All-Star Five of the Tournament alongside Tylor

Ongwae(Kenya), Edson Ndoniema(Angola), Tom Wamukota(Kenya) and Jordan Sacko(DR Congo).

Angola routed Morocco 88-71 to seal the last spot on the podium.