The National Schools Basketball festival organized by the Youth Basketball Guyana (YBG) and the National Sports Commission (NSC) will kick into high gear today at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall (CASH) from 16:00hrs with an official opening ceremony.
After the various conference finals around the nation, an influx of out- of-town teams will be looking to lift the overall festival trophy over their Georgetown counterparts to determine the best school playing basketball in Guyana.
The festival will now boil down to a total of twenty teams that will be separated into two divisions competing for separate titles.
Division One will consist of the higher ranking teams which will be further broken down into four groups with three schools in each group while Division Two will consist of lower ranking teams that will be broken down into two groups with four teams in each group.
“The festival is going to be like extraordinary because the lead up to the festival was really great and I see that trend continuing. The teams that are seen as the best will have a chance to prove that they are the best of the best and with all the various conference champion teams will have a lot to prove.
“So it’s going to be a passionate and competitive tournament and I think that the fan base will also increase because of the various regional tournaments,” President of the YBG, Chris Bowman told Stabroek Sport via telephone.
Meanwhile the main rivalry will be between the two Division One schools of Kwakwani Secondary and Marian Academy as Kwakwani has won the last two festivals defeating Marian Academy in both of those finals.
Teams in Division One will include: Marian Academy, Linden Technical Institute, Government Technical Institute, President’s College, Tutorial Academy, School of the Nations, St. Stanislaus College, University of Guyana, Kwakwani Secondary, Mackenzie High School, Plaisance Academy and Diamond Secondary.
Teams in Division Two will include: Port Mourant Secondary, Charlestown Secondary, Trust College, St Rose’s High, Queen’s College, Bishops’ High School, West Demerara Secondary and New Amsterdam Multilateral.
