… thirty-two teams to contest championship
STREET Solutions, in collaboration with the National Sports Commission (NSC), yesterday launched their National Schools Basketball Festival (NSBF) for the fifth year in succession at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall. The tournament this year will feature 32 teams drawn from Guyana’s three counties (Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice) and will be played on a round-robin knock-out format.
Sunday June 27 is the date when the event will officially begin, with the opening ceremony set for a 15:00 h start. Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, Minister of Education Sheik Baksh and Minister of Sport Dr Frank Anthony are all expected to officially declare the tournament open.
There will be an overall champion. The tournament will be divided into three categories – Under-16, Under-18 and Open – with each having two groups. Coordinator Chris Bowman explained there will be nothing short of competitiveness and a possibility of it being better than that of last year.
The Linden Technical Institute (LTI) are the defending overall champions having won in 2009 and 2008 while Kwakwani Secondary are set to shield their 2009 Under-18 title and the reigning Under-16 champions are Cummings Lodge Secondary.
“The NSBF is the national Championships for the country’s top secondary and tertiary teams in basketball; the event has become the benchmark for youth basketball in Guyana.
With 32 teams playing in intense double eliminating games this year … we believe that the NSBF is well positioned to foster positive change among our youth population,” Bowman said.
Speaking at a press conference hosted by the organisers, Director of Sport Neil Kumar stated that he was overwhelmed with the growth and continuity of the tournament which he said will be used as the yardstick to select Guyana’s Inter-Guiana Games basketball team.
Again local beverage giant Banks DIH and cellular service provider Digicel have aligned themselves with the tournament and the long-standing sport director was highly appreciative of their sponsorship, calling it “money well spent” and assured that they will get “mileage from the event because of its attraction of youths from across the country”.
“Basketball is one of the elite sports in Guyana and Guyana has been doing extremely well at the game at the Inter-Guiana Games level and around the Caribbean in past years,” Kumar said.
He said that the NSC has established a data base featuring players and their ages from all the schools around the country that play basketball.
Kumar also mentioned that he’s “quite certain that we’ll have a very exciting tournament and I want to assure Street Solutions that our partnership and synergies will take schools basketball to a higher level in Guyana”.
Banks DIH will be branding the tournament with their Sprite and Coca-Cola products, both of which are synonymous with the sport across the world.
The company’s Public Relations Officer (PRO) Troy Peters pledged their continuity of sponsorship and added, “We can expect a very exciting week and a half of youth basketball; I think it’s the foundation of what is to come for Guyana and I know that the Guyana Basketball Federation is doing its best to raise its bar and I think that this will be the foundation for things to come ….
“The NBA has just finished and I’m sure some of the youngsters will be happy to put some of those moves on the court so I would like to wish the teams well and the spectators to come out and support the tournament.”
Digicel’s marketing representative Shonnett Moore explained that her company, seeing the cohesion of sports and education with students around the country, it is more than fitting for a positive return of interest in the sport and expressed her happiness that the tournament seized the opportunity to decentralise the sport giving other youngsters a chance at competing at the big stage.