PLAYERS and coaching staff of the historic national men’s basketball team, who won their first Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC) Caribbean Championship in June, will tonight each receive $100 000 from the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) as a token of appreciation, at the recently refurbished Burnham Basketball Court.

Playing undefeated through the group stage, Guyana demolished Barbados 81-75 in the semi-finals, before going on to rout Antigua and Barbuda 83-70 in a closely-contested final, to lift the trophy for the first time in 37 years.

The John Yates Trophy has returned to Guyana! Yates, in 1981, pioneered the Caribbean Basketball Championship, with the inaugural tournament hosted at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.

Guyana had never won the title for the tournament which is now known as the Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC) Championship, until a team, led by an 18-year-old point guard from Kwakwani, Stanton Rose, invaded Suriname (where the 2018 tournament was held), and won the trophy named after the man who fashioned the regional showpiece.

Rose (captain), Shaine Webster, Harold Adams, Orland Glasgow, Travis Burnette, Travis Belgrave, Kevon Wiggins, Timothy Thompson, Dennis Clarke (assistant coach) and Junior Hercules (head coach) are the members of the team who are currently in Guyana and will be present to receive their cash

According to GABF president Nigel Hinds, “other members of the 2018 Caribbean Basketball Championship team who are now overseas (Ray Victor, Anthony Moe and Denzel Devonish) will receive their moneys by wire transfer.”

Rose was named Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the tournament for his sensational performances, which included a tournament-high 41-point performance in Guyana’s 104-102 double overtime win against St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Rose, who totalled 106 points (third overall), led the tournament in steals, totalling 15 at an average of 2.5 per game, was third in points per game (17.7), third in assists per game, eighth in rebounds per game and was the fourth best efficient player.

He will go down in history as the youngest (18 years) to ever captain Guyana at the CBC Championship, and the first captain to bring Guyana their ‘elusive’ title.

British Virgin Island-based (BVI) shooting guard, Ray Victor, also had a good showing in Paramaribo, finishing as the team’s highest aggregate scorer (108 points) and averaging 18 points per game.

Victor’s best performance came against Suriname when he netted a game-high 28 points, and against Barbados, dropping another game-high scoring night with 24 points.

The former Warner University guard then teamed up with Rose to become a lethal back-court combination for coach Junior Hercules, as they progressed in the FIBA AmeriCup tournament.

Anthony Moe, the 6’9” forward came up big for Guyana in several games, having been forced to play the centre position because of Guyana’s lack of ‘big men’. Nonetheless, Moe finished with a 13-point average, and the team’s leading rebounder.

Meanwhile, Guyana, ranked 112 in the World by the game’s governing body FIBA, will move on, along with Antigua and Barbuda, to the FIBA AmeriCup Qualifiers tournament which starts in September.