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Namuwongo Blazers have discovered their opponents for the 2026 Basketball Africa League (BAL) Elite 16, with the Ugandan champions drawn in Group B of the East Division ahead of the decisive qualification tournament in Nairobi, Kenya.
The Blazers will face Tanzania’s Dar City, Botswana’s Dolphins and Mozambique’s Ferroviario da Beira as they pursue a historic place in the 2027 BAL regular season.
The draw was conducted on Friday, November 6, in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, with 16 teams divided into four groups across the East and West divisions.
The Elite 16 tournament will take place from November 23 to 29 in Nairobi, where Namuwongo must finish among the top two teams in their division to secure qualification.
Their opponents present different challenges, with Dar City earning automatic qualification for this stage, while Dolphins and Ferroviario da Beira progressed through the earlier qualifying rounds.
Namuwongo arrive at this stage after negotiating the previous qualification round, where they booked their place in the Elite 16 with an overtime victory over Rwanda’s Patriots.
The Blazers will now be aiming to build on that progress and secure what would be a landmark qualification for Ugandan basketball.
The top two teams in each division will qualify automatically for the BAL regular season, while an additional place will go to the best-ranked third-placed team across the East and West divisions. This will bring the number of teams qualifying from the Elite 16 to five.
Those five sides will join seven clubs that have already secured automatic qualification for the 2027 BAL season, representing Angola, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Tunisia.
For Namuwongo, the Nairobi assignment offers an opportunity to take Ugandan basketball onto the continent’s biggest club stage. However, they will first have to overcome three determined opponents to turn that ambition into reality.
