The Guyana Secondary Schools Basketball Associa-tion (GSSBA) season resumes today with most of the teams having just two to three games to complete their regular season play before “March Madness”.
Since the GSSBA has adopted a schedule similar to the National College Athletes Association (NCAA), in the United States of America, teams will be seeded from their record (wins and losses) after the season and the teams will battle to decide the champion school of the country in a playoff format with all of games happening in March hence the name “March Madness”.
Vice president of the GSSBA and former national player, Karem Abrams, told Stabroek Sport that her association had many progressive programmes planned for 2008 which included co-curriculum activities such as debates and extra classes/ tutorial for players who needed help academically.
Apart from that Abrams said the GSSBA would also be involved in community outreach programmes and fundraising activities which would help them to finance some of their many initiatives while at the same time make them a household name in society.
Abrams said that the major role of their organization was to produce upright citizens and all the GSSBA’s ventures were targeted to achieve that goal.
“We hope to produce good citizens who are ready for society, whether it may be a top student-athlete, a disciplined individual equipped for service in the business sector or even if it is to help the individual get their own small business started with a micro loan.” she said.
Abrams said that they would be placing more emphasis on the academic aspect of players’ lives and would try their best along with teachers and parents to attain their goal of successfully producing student/athletes.
The GSSBA has already attracted much attention and positive support from schools, players and parents throughout Georgetown and Linden in just over three months of operation and Abrams said that there would be no stopping the organization as it strove to reach heights that were before conceived to be unreachable.
After the regular season has been concluded there will be a grand All Star weekend scheduled to be held sometime in February, featuring the top performers from the GSSBA season throughout the season.
The GSSBA also has a $75,000 incentive prize for the eventual winner of the playoffs which will be specifically intended for the development of the basketball programme in that school.
There will also be special prizes given to the top scorer of the tournament, the student-athlete of the tournament- that is the student with the best grades and basketball skill combined, player with most rebounds, and the most assists.
As the end of the season draws near, teams will be putting it all on the line to improve their rankings.
The four matchups for the day are: Charlestown Secondary vs New Campbellville Secondary, St. Stanislaus College vs Brickdam Secondary, Business School vs Guyana Trust College and Guyana Trust College vs School of the Nations.
