Now down to 15, the Junior National basketball team will move their preparations to a more competitive level when they meet Ravens Basketball Club’s Division One team in the first of a series of warm-up matches at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.
The warm up games are scheduled for every weekend leading up to the Inter Guiana Games (IGG), excluding next weekend and forms part of the team’s preparation for the basketball events of the upcoming games which will be held November 19 and 20 at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.
Head Coach of the team, Mark Agard, told Stabroek Sport yesterday that the main reason for the warm-up games was to identify areas of weakness, such as areas where the team is lacking in fundamentals and focus on improving these aspects during the training sessions that follow the weekend’s play.
“If we notice we are having too many turnovers during the game, we will work on passing or if we notice the guys are not positioning themselves properly, we will work on that during the next practice session,” Agard explained.
“We will be focusing on fundamentals during our practice on the week days and game play during the series of warm-up games on the weekend,” Agard added.
The final squad representing Guyana at the IGG is yet to be selected but Agard related that based on the players’ performance during their practice on the week days they [The team management and coach] have selected a 12- man squad for tonight’s encounter.
However, the squad being named is not the final selection for the IGG games, nor for future weekend warm up games. He clarified that the players will be rotated on a weekly basis based on what he observes during practice as they wish to afford everyone a chance to play and observe them in in-game situations.
“Out of the 15 at practice we will determine who play’s and who doesn’t play. Not the same 12 will play every weekend,” Agard said.
“The senior and experienced guys in the team, like those that played in the last IGG will basically be selected every weekend, but the others will be interchanged… we’ll be giving everyone a chance to play, ” he added.
According to the head coach, in addition to Ravens, weekend warm up games for the Junior National team have also been scheduled with other clubs in Georgetown. The IGG team will be challenging a different team every weekend.
“All in all we are making steady progress… I think the guys are improving steadily,” Agard said.
Prior to the evenings feature game between the Ravens and Junior National team, their will also be two High School games, one being a grudge match between high school rivals, School of the Nations and Marian Academy leading up to the big game.
The evening’s curtain raiser is scheduled to tip-off at 6.30 pm.
