Morans land group D in FIBA World Cup Africa Qualifiers

National men’s basketball team, Kenya Morans, will play fourth-placed Senegal, sixth-placed Egypt and 11th-placed Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the group D of the FIBA World Cup African qualifiers set to begin in November 2021. 

The team is currently in Kigali, Rwanda where they competing in the Afrobasket Championship for the first time in 28 years. Kenya is chasing their first-ever appearance at the FIBA Basketball World Cup.

AfroBasket 2021: Sibling rivalry as Morans face South Sudan for a quarter's berth

The qualifier draw ceremony held on Tuesday 31 August 2021 marks the tip-off as teams try to successfully navigate their way on the road to the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023. Set to take place in 2 years in Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines, the 2023 edition of the FIBA Basketball World Cup marks the first time multiple countries will host this showpiece event. 

Continuing with the new era of FIBA event qualification implemented for the 2019 World Cup, the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 competition system is comprised of six windows played over 15 months across the four regions of Africa, Americas, Asia/Oceania and Europe. Each qualification window lasts nine days, with the windows running from November 2021 to February 2023. 

80 countries are left vying to be among the 32 teams at the 2023 World Cup and it will take teams a cumulative 420 games to get there. The national sides play home and away games across each of these event windows, a surefire way to ensure there’s intense national team play for players and fans to experience all around the world.

In the first round of the African qualifiers, the 16 teams are divided into four groups with four teams apiece. Each team will face the other three teams in their group in two tournaments played over three event windows. The teams will play three games in each window. These nine-day windows will be played starting in November 2021, February 2022 and June 2022.

The top three teams from each group will advance to the Second Round of the African Qualifiers. Here, the group’s three advancing teams will join three other teams to create two six-team groups. All teams will carry over their results from the First Round.

In the Second Round, each team will play each new team in their group during two tournaments played over two event windows schedule in August 2022 and February 2023.

At the end of these additional six games per team, the two top teams in each group, along with the best third-placed team, will qualify to the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023.

Sixteen African nations are vying for the continent's five spots in the flagship tournament. They are: Angola, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Congo DR, Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Sudan, Tunisia, Uganda. 

Additional information by FIBA