Guyana’s return to the Carib-bean Basketball Confeder-ation (CBC) championships this year has triggered an overwhelming interest among players locally and internationally in the male and female national teams.
President of the Guyana Amateur Basketball Feder-ation (GABF), Godwin McPherson told the media last week at the launch of the upcoming Georgetown vs Linden contest that both local and overseas-based players would be subject to a similar selection criteria.
“The criteria that will be used are statistics, there is a four- man panel that will look at all the players in the two tournaments (the upcoming inter-association tournament and a national first division tournament),” McPherson said.
Georgetown is expected to take on Linden in a GABF GABF/ Wildfire Production inter-association tournament beginning Saturday night at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall and continuing in Linden on Sunday.
The inter-association tournament will be followed by a national first-division club tournament, all aimed at giving local players the opportunity to make the national team for the CBC event in Puerto Rico in August.
“A panel of local coaches are expected to go to the US to see some players before a final Guyana representative team is selected,” he ex-plained. Meanwhile, “Patrick Haynes, Steve Nurse and Larry Davis are among those on a US panel looking at players who have expressed their willingness to represent Guyana,” the GABF boss indicated.
Haynes operates and runs Twinkillas.com, a website geared to supporting Guyana’s national team while Nurse is a member of the Washington DC Jammers and Davis is a college coach in the US.
“We have about 20 male names that are playing at college levels and other levels interested in representing Guyana; we are arranging for them to meet monthly at different locations under the panel,” McPherson noted.
After both the local and international panels working in conjunction with the GABF to select the national team have seen all the players, the GABF will ask the panel for a shortlist of between 15-18 players.
The final composition of both male and female teams that will travel to Puerto Rico will include 12 players each along with three officials. McPherson said that good local players would not be suppressed for mediocre foreigners.
“If we have good locals and we push them down for mediocre foreigners these two presidents (referring to president of the Georgetown sub-association, Chris Bowman, and Linden sub-association president Colin Aaron) wouldn’t forgive any of us,” he mentioned.
Head of Wildfire Productions, Jonathan Beepat was tasked at the launching by McPherson to ensure that the event on Saturday is of supreme quality. McPherson said that he has confidence in the company since they have a good track record.
In his response, Beepat indicated that they are currently no hiccups in the planning of the event. According to Beepat, all the tournament and the national team needed now was the support of every Guyanese.
“This is our initial press conference to show that we have basketball heads together and there are no hiccups facing us. All we need is the support of the Guyanese people,” Beepat said.
The event on Saturday is one of many fund-raising ventures to secure funds to send the two national teams to Puerto Rico. Guyana has not participated in the CBC event since 2000 when the country’s male team placed third.
“I think this is the year when we really have to make the move toward the unity of basketball. I am very proud to say that I am going to be a part of this venture,” the Wildfire Chief Executive Officer indicated.
Beepat was obviously heartened by the collaborative efforts being made by the three basketball bodies with the support of Wildfire Productions and the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T).
“I think with this kind of competition and collaboration, we can’t go wrong especially with the help of our corporate sponsor GT&T to help revive basketball, I could see great things for the sport and us moving ahead,” he said.
The inter-association tournament will also include the best females from the basketball power-houses of Georgetown and Linden. A spot on the national team has become like a spot on the US Olympic ‘Dream Team’ – every player wants one!