WITH just two weeks to go before Guyana’s senior Men’s National basketball team participates at the 2021 FIBA AmeriCup pre-qualifiers tournament, Head Coach Junior Hercules’ side’s preparation is being hampered by financial woes facing the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF).

Guyana will travel to Colombia where they are placed in ‘Pool B’ of the February 22 – 24 qualifiers in Tunja, alongside the home country (Colombia), Paraguay and Bolivia.
The Land of Many Waters will be the Caribbean’s representative at the tournament, following their historic performance at the Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC) Championship where they won, for the first time, the ‘John Yates Trophy’ and earned the right to be called ‘Caribbean Champs’.

Hercules called 22-players to trials, including former Dallas Mavericks and Indiana Pacers guard, Rawle Marshall, and AEK Athens’ forward, Delroy James.
In an exclusive interview with Chronicle Sport last evening at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall, he revealed “right now, we have some limitations in terms of we have players who are available to travel to come here and join us, but due to funding, the Federation is unable to bring those players.”

Stanton Rose, who was named Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the CBC tournament, Anthony Moe, Sean Duncan and Kevon Wiggins were the other overseas players called by Hercules, but the usually candid coach pointed out “largely, we have five overseas players who are waiting on a word from us with regards to their ticket and right now we are unable to do that, so it’s our hope that at least by Wednesday we can have a word on those players.”

Hercules and the GABF worries when it comes to players making it to the trials is not limited to those overseas, since the home-based players are finding it difficult to take time off from work and not be compensated for their loss of earnings.

According to Hercules, “we have returning players from the championship team who are unable to make trials because of their commitment to work and we’re unable to provide a stipend at this time to offset the loss of revenue for that period, and hence a player has to choose between work and coming to train.”

The National basketball team’s head coach noted that the financial situation facing the team is unfortunate, especially since Guyana is the current Caribbean Champions; a feat that has never been accomplished before in the country’s history of the sport.
“It’s very discouraging on the part of players knowing that they’re champions and we have to be struggling at this point,” Hercules lamented.

Meanwhile, looking ahead from the two-day trials, Hercules is hoping that this week he will be able to make a final announcement of the players selected.