STREET Solutions, the organisers of the Annual National Schools’ Basketball Festival, came in for high praises from Minister of Sport Dr. Frank Anthony when the tournament bounced off yesterday at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.

A record thirty- two schools will be participating in the nine – day competition that is celebrating its fifth year of existence.

The Minister said that his ministry is willing to partner with the entity to help promote and develop schools’ basketball around Guyana, stating that “We have 20 backboards at the Ministry and we want Street Solutions to help us in handing out these backboards so that the participating schools will be properly equipped to play.”

He went on to mention that also plans will be put in train to make sure that the schools who are not participants of the event because of their ill-knowledge and expertise in the game will be given the tools and equipment to be brought into the fray of the tournament.

“We want more schools to embrace the game of basketball and as such we at the Ministry will be making every effort to make sure that is met. We will be partnering with Street Solutions to make this happen because we want more and more schools to get involve with sports, more so basketball”, said Anthony.

In the meantime, Prime Minister Samuel Hinds was also on hand to witness the start of the tournament and made mention of his pleasure at seeing all the schools being properly represented.

The Prime Minister pointed out that he hopes the tournament will be played in the true spirit of sportsmanship and wished the best team success.

Meanwhile, up to press time Chronicle Sport could have only gotten the result of the Plaisance/Saint Stanislaus College Under-16 match up which the latter won 27 – 22 in an entertaining low scoring match-up.

The other games played were Marian Academy versus President College and Plaisance versus Guyana Trust College with both games being under – 18 clashes and the University of Guyana played Nations in an Open category affair.

Ten games are slated for today starting from 12:30h with an under – 16 match between Brickdam Secondary and West Demerara Secondary Schools.

One of the tournament’s long living rivalries would be reborn today with the clash of the Technical Institutes when Linden, the defending champions, clash with Georgetown.

With no Orin Rose (LTI) who claimed two Most Valuable Players awards (MVP) during his team’s reign in 2008 and 2009 and no Shelroy Thomas (GTI) basketball fans will be eager to see what the new breed of players from each side will be bringing to the table.