The perfect forum to answer many questions
MANY questions are to be answered  Saturday when Ravens face Courts Pacesetters in the final of the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) National Club Championships. Both sides booked a place to vie for the ‘best club’ after recording resounding victories over Beepat Scorpions and Maccabees, but things will take an interesting twist this time around as compared to their numerous memorable duels.
In fact, Ravens have lost only once over an 18- month span and even strengthened their grip over the game in Georgetown when they won the open and knock-out competitions of the Georgetown Amateur Basketball Association (GABA) last year.
Ravens organised a memorial game to pay homage to their fallen player Kevin Lawrence by putting together the best the game had to offer in the city in one team to play against them.
The results saw them defeating the GT-All Stars 57-50 and that set the tone for the team to say that their next aim is to take over the status as the ‘best club’ in Guyana and up came the National Club Championships.
Ravens made headlines even before they played their first game, when they acquired the skills of the National player ‘The Dream’ Akeem Kanhai from the Amelia’s Ward Jets in Linden.
Many players/pundits believe that Kanhai’s move was to basically be on a winning team but the player, who has been the talk of Guyana’s basketball over the last two years said that his ulterior motive was to enhance his game.
But the question now is: Can Pacesetters coach Robert ‘Bobby’ Cadogan stake his claim that his being the National coach is just, or should Darcel Harris now be taken seriously by the GABF for the job, or at least be invested in?
The fact is that since the departure of former Ravens coach Lugard Mohan; a former accomplished national point guard-cum-FIBA-certified referee, Harris, a player in his own right, has stepped off the court and led his team to the top of the city league.
Losing one game in almost two years should be taken into consideration including a 20-point blowout of Pacesetters last year in a grudge match.
Looking at the two teams, only Ravens have made an adjustment to their roster to fill the spot left by Kevin Lawrence who was their top scorer at the time of his passing and had something the team miss at present which is a legitimate perimeter shooter.
Who is the better shooter, Lawrence or Pacesetters’ Stephon Gillis? This topic has often been debated, but the past player would always come out the winner. Lawrence was more instrumental in his team’s victory. Ravens, however, showed that they can still win without Lawrence even though he played a key part in their offence.
Another factor and probably by far the most important is how will Cadogan and his boys defend Akeem Kanhai, who has shown and proved to be one of the hardest of the guards to contain, looking at his stats among the seniors from the inter-ward to now with Ravens.
Kanhai, a 6’ 4” guard, with excellent ball-handling skills and unselfish characteristics, is so far unmatched in local basketball and now, tutored by one of the best local coaches, he has proved to be a bit more dangerous.
He (Kanhai) has so far taken up a leadership role in Ravens judging from his performance so far in the tournament, and could well be on his way to receiving the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award, should his side win, and given the fact he caused a stir with his move to the Ravens nest, that will be the only thing on his mind.
Over the past few years, Cadogan has benefited tremendously from a series of coaching upgrades from the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) but has had a poor local club track record and is so far 0-2 at the Inter Guiana Games (IGG) both times finishing second to Suriname.
Harris, on the other hand,  has set a hurdle for Cadogan to overcome and it keeps getting worse at his every attempt.
With the GABF short-listing  players for the upcoming Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC) championships, the coaches are also being looked at and a win for Harris on Saturday  night could cause some headaches for the Federation especially when he becomes certified later in the month.
The National Club Championships has been a welcome scenario for the answers to many questions engaging the minds of the local analysts and players.