WITH the Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC) Champion draws near, Guyana officially began training as a team last Tuesday at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.
The tournament which will be held from July 23 to 29 in the Bahamas will see Guyana make a return since 2007 with an all-local lineup competing against defending champions Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, Turks and Caicos and The Virgin Islands in the preliminary round of the championships.
Following last weekend’s tryouts, the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) had shortlisted 19 players from a list of 35 – 16 locals, three overseas – who will be under the guidance of coaches Robert ‘Bobby’ Cadogan, Abdullah ‘Zico’ Hamid, Mark Agard and Lugard Mohan.
On Wednesday, GABF president David Patterson  said that preparations are moving apace and that his federation is at present working overtime since a lot needs to be done prior to the team leaving for Nassau, Bahamas.
Asked on the availability of the overseas players, Patterson said that so far Keiron McKenzie, the shooting guard out of Washington DC, has been contacted and they are currently working on getting him down to Guyana as soon as possible.
Kurt ‘Gipsy’ Elias, who is based in Barbados is scheduled to arrive in Guyana within another week but Patterson was not certain on the arrangements for Trinidad and Tobago-based Andrew Ifill, referring this newspaper to GABF vice-president Floyd Levi who he said would be in a better position to comment on Ifill’s case.
Patterson said that by having together all the players shortlisted way before the start of the tournament, the coaching staff and the selection panel can properly make their assessment and select the best team to represent Guyana.
He said that the players would be involved in a series of games to be played at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall since they don’t have any plan to have the team travel to play elsewhere leading up to the CBC.
The team will be in training every Tuesday and Thursday (08:00hrs to 22:00hrs) and Saturday and Sunday (07:00hrs to 10:00hrs) until the final composition of the squad is selected, during July 8-10.
Meanwhile, the GABF is still to complete its National Club Championship final which is to be contested between Courts Pacesetters and Dyna’s Ravens.
Patterson said that the National Sports Commission (NSC) has been given a date for the use of the Sports Hall but is awaiting a confirmation before making a pronouncement.
The players shortlisted are: Guards – Kevin Joseph, Keiron McKenzie, Rodwell Fortune, Travis Burnette, Steve Neils Jr, Shelroy Thomas, Ryan Stephney, Forwards – Andrew Ifill, Ryan Gullen, Stephon Gillis, Akeem Kanhai, Neil Marks, Louis James, and Randy Richards Centres – Dwayne Roberts, Kurt Elias, Jermaine Slater and Shane Webster.