Guyana finish in fifth place after beating Barbados 79-58

BOLSTERED by a game-high 17 points from Gordon Klaiber and 16 each from Andrew Ifill and Dwayne ‘Brown Sugar’ Roberts, Guyana defeated Barbados 79-58, to finish in fifth place at this year’s Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC) tournament in Tortola.The tournament was won by the Bahamas who defeated Cuba 75-62 to win their seventh CBC title. Both Bahamas and Cuba, along with third-place finisher and 2011 Champions USVI (defeated BVI 102-68) will represent the CBC at the 2014 Centrobasket Championship, in Nayarit, Mexico from August 1 to 7.
Guyana had a dismal start to their CBC campaign, losing their opening game 63-99 to the BVI then falling 75-95 to former Champions USVI. In their third game, Guyana battled Barbados in a hard 69-80 point loss.
But led by their captain and former Dallas Mavericks and Indiana Pacers shooting guard Rawle Marshall, Guyana dismantled St Vincent and the Grenadines 86-72 to set up another showdown with Barbados.
Based on how well they were able to come from being down by as many as 30 points to narrowly lose to the ‘Bajans’ in their previous meeting, it was almost certain that the Guyanese would have won.
Marshall had a quiet game scoring-wise and made his presence felt with his ball distribution in his second showing against Barbados.
Klaiber, Ifill and Roberts collectively took on the responsibility of getting Guyana’s points and past the team who narrowly beat them in the group stages of the tournament.
The first half ended 33-26 and Barbados, though being outplayed, kept themselves in the game, scoring 21 third-quarter points but Guyana had 23. Heading into the final stanza of the game, the scoreboard read 56-47 in favour of the eventual winners.
In the fourth quarter, led by Marshall’s game-high seven assists and Akeem Kanhai’s stubborn defence in the back court, Guyana restricted Barbados to just 11 points in the quarter.
It was the first good game for Roberts on the offensive side of things and the Retrieve Raiders power forward took full advantage of the flimsy ‘Bajan’ front court.
Despite the many off-court distractions, the Guyana team still managed to regroup and finish in a creditable position.
Since finishing third in 2000 when the tournament was held in Barbados, Guyana were missing from the CBC circuit until an all-overseas-based team participated in 2007 when the tournament was held in Puerto Rico where they finished at the bottom of the eight-team table.
Lack of financing played a major part in the team once again not being able to feature at the tournament, until 2011 when only local players participated and finished seventh in the Bahamas.

(By Rawle Toney)