By Kiev Chesney
The Guyana Basketball Federation (GABF) National Inter Sub-Association Championships will begin this evening at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.
In the two scheduled matches, Georgetown’s senior team will come up against New Amsterdam while the under-20 team will play Linden’s under-20.
Technical Director of the GABF and national coach Robert Cadogan, told members of the media at the launch on Thursday that the start of the Inter Sub-Association Championship marked the beginning of a period where the federation planned to support players locally by continuously running off tournaments.
And, president of the GABF Col. (retired) Godwin McPherson, said at the launch that the late start of the federation’s activities resulted from the confusion among some basketball nations in the Caribbean as well as other activities that the country had been involved in.
He added that the federation needed time to get its structure in order and had decided to follow the structure of the game set by the International Basketball Federation (FIBA).
“There was some confusion earlier this year as we were preparing a team to attend the Junior Caribbean Basketball Championships (CBC) and we thought that we would have had a strong team since we captured the Inter-Guiana title in the same age group. However it was later changed to an under-16 championship and that threw us out a bit,” Mc Pherson said.
He mentioned, however, that Guyana had been invited to an under-20 tournament in Barbados which he said would feature teams from the USA while the coach of Guyana’s national teams which attended last year’s Caricom championships would also be visiting Guyana this year.
McPherson said that apart from the annual visit of Washington-based DC Jammers basketball team which he anticipated would take place in August this year, the under-23 and senior players may also attend a tournament in the Dominican Republic in August.
Meanwhile, representatives of the various sub-associations lauded the efforts of the GABF in commencing the Sub-Associations Champion-ships which should showcase a wide range of talent competing in different categories.
The categories for the championships are women’s Open, male senior, U-23 and U-20.
Present for the sub-associations were Public Relations Officer of the Georgetown Amateur Basketball Association (GABA) Kezweyah Yisreal, Linden Amateur Basketball Association president, Uborn Smith and president of the Guyana Women’s Basketball Association, Michaela Burnett.
Patrice Andries, Managing Director of Avway Enterprise, one of the major sponsors of the tournament pledged his continued support to the sport.
He added that his love for the game and his vision of seeing an improved level of play that will automatically attract sponsors drove him to aid in sponsoring the tournament.
Following tomorrow’s matches, play will continue the following weekend with the final four games before the start of the female and U-23 championships.
The Georgetown players who have been named for this weekend’s encounter are as follows:
Juniors: Travis Burnett, Travis Stewart, John Fraser, Kevin Evans, Jermaine Slater, Tyrone Hamid, Shelroy Thomas, Micheal Thompson, Keno George, Kevin Jordan, Colwin Nurse, Marlon Chesney, Bevon Spooner, Kiev Chesney, Dellon Daniels, Yannick Dundas and Dellon Davidson. Seniors: Darcel Harris, Pelham Doris, Stephon Gillis, Ryan Gullen, Ryan Stephney, Naylon Loncke, Triston Tulloch, Royston Siland, Fabian Johnson, Kurt Elias, Rudy James, and Drumson McCauley.
