Guyana’s basketball year has been somewhat of a rollercoaster ride with some highpoints and a number of lows throughout 2010.
The highlights of the year came in the form of international basketball events being hosted at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall (CASH), which saw teams such as the Washington D.C Jammers and the world renowned AND 1 Streetball team, both from the United States of America contesting Guyana’s senior players.
The country’s best junior players also got into the international basketball action on home turf as they competed against Suriname and French Guiana in the second leg of the 2010 Inter-Guiana Games (IGG) last November.
There were some sprinkles of disappointment on the local stage.
The clubs saw the basketball year cut short as a result of the international competitions and the players were privy to the fact that they needed to step up their game in order to seriously challenge the overseas teams.
And, while there was the completion of some successful tournaments there was also the postponement and delayed start of others around Georgetown.
One such tournament was the Georgetown Amateur Basketball Association (GABA) Open and Division Three leagues which began in December of 2009 at CASH, but concluded until September of 2010 at the Burnham Court.
The behind-scheduled completion of the tournament was due to Mashramani activities and other sports events such as table tennis and hockey competitions and the National Schools Basketball Festival (NSBF) which crowded the venue’s (CASH) events schedule.
This caused GABA’s President Trevor Rose to rush full speed ahead with the long awaited Burnham Court rehabilitation project in order to complete the leagues at the popular outdoor facility. The project, though, is yet to be completed, but works done at the facility brought the Burnham Court to competition level with the completion of the project’s first two phases, the installation of lights and the extension of the court along with seating for players.
Another reason for the late completion of GABA’s leagues was the hosting of the Mackeson National Super Ward Championships in April-May of 2010.
The tournament was won by the Albouystown/Charlestown basketball team and it also shone the spotlight on young talented players such as Akeem ‘The Dream’ Kanhai who was later selected by the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation for the senior national basketball team to represent Guyana against the DC Jammers in the summer international series.
Kanhai’s selection to the national team came following another national drawback where the senior players from Linden boycotted the trials for the national team to face the DC Jammers due to disputes with the GABF over transportation costs from Linden to practice at CASH.
This left the national team with a lower strength team than one with the Linden players included with mostly Georgetown based players and Trinidadian based player Andrew Ifill to face the DC Jammers. The result was the national team being swept by the visitors three games to none in their three-game series in August.
Things did not fare too well for the country’s senior players once again as they went up against the AND 1 basketball team at Wildfire Entertainment’s All-Star basketball Weekend.
Though not a GABF authorized senior national team, organizers of the All-Star Weekend hand picked some of Guyana’s best players to contest the world renowned AND 1 Streetball stars.
However Guyana’s best still wasn’t good enough as they were outclassed and, at some times, humiliated during their 55-101 loss to the AND 1 team.
Meanwhile, with the completion of GABA’s league and the first two phases of the Burnham Court rehabilitation project came Guyana’s own version of ‘Streetball’ in the making and the GABA organized Pepsi Street Basketball Series was successfully staged at the Burnham Basketball Court as the top teams in GABA’s Open and Division Three leagues contested each other in their respective divisions.
The juniors were also in the spotlight after the best of the lot was identified and selected throughout the NSBF earlier in year for the junior national team to represent Guyana at the IGG.
The junior nationals showed their worth at the basketball events of the IGG but their long and arduous preparation didn’t guarantee them the IGG basketball championship, although they grabbed second place after being defeated for the second consecutive year at the hands of Suriname in the championship game.
However, with the completion of the IGG came more postponements for GABA who found themselves without a backboard at the Burnham basketball, since one of the backboards in CASH, which was broken prior to the Guyana-Suriname championship game was replaced with one of the backboards from the Burnham Court.
The backboard was removed by the NSC on the night of the incident at CASH, a move which did not seem to trouble GABA president Trevor Rose, since according to him, the backboard removed from the Burnham Court was on loan from the NSC and the time period for which it was borrowed had long expired.
Some of the players representing Guyana at the IGG were now unable to represent their respective basketball clubs at two of GABA’s recently launched tournaments, ‘GABA’s Division One and Two Knockout tournament and the Kevin Worrell Memorial tournament.
Since that night the Burnham court remains with a backboard missing and this has forced GABA to postpone two competitions which they only launched last November.
The tournaments are yet to be restarted and it appears that any scheduled restart will be done in the new year since according to Rose, GABA is now focusing on its elections which Rose stated, will be held later the month.
In addition, the year did have its disappointments in terms of promises made by the GABF not being met and females not doing any travelling. It was stated by the GABF president David Patterson that the national female team would travel to Antigua for 11th Annual Gillian Brazier Basketball Shoot-Out for females in November and a trip to Suriname later in December.
Both these trips were cancelled due to a lack of funding, according to the GABF.
The laid back approach by the GABF has resulted in the female team not leaving Guyana’s shores as promised for the year 2010. However, the GABF has promised that the senior national team will be returning to the Caribbean Basketball Championships this year. Whether this will become a reality remains to be seen. (To be continued)
