The Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC) released its playing brackets for the 21st championships showing Guyana to play against the Turks and Caicos on July 24; the day after the prestigious tournament officially opens.
July 23-29 will feature the men’s championship events which are set for Kendal Isaacs Gymnasium in Nassau, Bahamas, and it will be a tough going for the locals who will play back-to-back after their opening clash.
Guyana will face defending champions Jamaica on the 25th, Virgin Islands on the 26th and Antigua and Barbuda on the 27th.
It’s the first time in ten years that the championship is being hosted in the Bahamas and according to an article posted on the CBC website (www.caribbeanbasketball.com), CBC president Usie Richards stressed that “while it has been quite a while since the Bahamas team qualified for CARICOM, this is a golden opportunity for the Bahamian public to lend their support to the federation’s efforts to get the job done this year at home”.
Bahamas Basketball Federation (BBF) president Lawrence Hepburn, according to the article, expressed his federation’s delight in hosting the event, stating that “It’s a great sports tourism initiative, so we hope to have the fine folks from the Ministry of Tourism on board with us.
“We want to let the public know that there will be revenue for having these people here. We want the Bahamian people to make them feel special, so come out and support every team that comes in here because of the exposure that the Bahamas will gain from this.”
Richards explained that “The Caribbean Basketball Confederation is a sub-zone of FIBA Americas, which is a zone of the International Basketball Federation, which is either the second or third largest sports federation in the international Olympic Committee with some 212 members”.
“We are divided into five zones from Africa, Asia, America, Oceania and Europe. In our area, we are known as FIBA Americas. We have three sub-zones within our zone, the North America, Central America and Caribbean and South America”.
“Within the sub zone of Central American and Caribbean, there are two sub-zones. Those two sub-zones are CONCABA, which represents some nine countries in the Caribbean and the CBC, which represents some 24 national federations from Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda and Jamaica in the north down to the tip of South America to include Guyana and Suriname.”
Meanwhile, Guyana will be making a return with an all-local side, according to the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) president David Patterson, ever since finishing 8th in the 2007 championships in Puerto Rico.
However, the local side is far from being shortlisted since the GABF has yet to finish their National Club Championships which they set as part of their selection criteria.
The GABF, since taking office under Patterson had stated that returning Guyana to international action is their priority but since then not even a national coach has been identified and with the championship
just over a month away, little or nothing has been heard concerning selection.
Akeem ‘The Dream’ Kanhai, who is set to take on his regional counterpart, is among the front-runners for selection, including his Ravens team mates Dwayne ‘Brown Sugar’ Roberts and Ryan Gullen, along with Courts Pacesetters’ big-man Royston Siland.
According to a source, should the team not attend the championships, a US$5 000 (GT$1M) fine could be imposed on the GABF by the CBC.