Guyana’s quest to successfully defend their male basketball championship title this November at the Inter Guiana Games (IGG) in French Guiana will be aided this year by a relatively large pool of players who have begun training according to President of the Georgetown Amateur Basketball Association (GABA) Chris Bowman.
Bowman is the coordinator of the Junior Elite Programme (JEP), which is an on-going developmental programme which is being run through the National Sports Commis-sion (NSC) that has the goal of nurturing the skills of the country’s top junior basketball players and providing prospects for the IGG as two of its primary objectives.
In an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sport yesterday, Bowman said that JEP has completed the selection component and is in the penultimate phase of preparations for the games.
“The JEP has completed the last phase of the selection process for this year after the completion of the recently held Pepsi National Schools’ Basketball Festival, and we have invited some talented young players to join the on-going programme,” he said.
He added that apart from the nine players that will be returning from last year’s championship team, and the players that were selected from the recently concluded National Schools’ Basketball Festival, additional players would be invited to practice with the squad.
Such players, he said, would have been selected based on their performance in club tournaments earlier this year including the Guyana Secondary School Basketball Association League.
“I think that the size of the squad this year will have a positive effect on the level of competitiveness as it will be a lot tougher for persons to make the final team which will be selected in 10 weeks,” he said.
The GABA president said, “Some the new players selected have not yet developed their existing skills and gained enough experience to challenge the returning players, but they are young and they will be nurtured under the JEP so that there will be a strong core of players to represent us at these games in the future”.
The entire JEP squad of players that will be practicing on Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons reads: Returning players: John Fraser, Kevin Evans, Michael Thompson, Jermaine Slater, Marlon Chesney, Travis Stewart, Travis Burnett, Orin Rose, Akeem Kanhai, along with the new acquisitions: Yannick Dundas, Sean Lashley, Stravin Ettiene, Richard Mohandatt, Travis Leitch, Keno George, Tyrone Hamid, Denzil Plak, Devon Gittens, Colwin Nurse, Samuel Thompson, Keon Hayles, Keith Tute, Donnel Benjamin, Linden Joseph, Keith Sullivan, Shelroy Thomas, Kevin Jordan.
While practice sessions have been on-going, most the new prospects who would have been invited based on their performance in the National Basketball Festival, are expected to join the sessions this weekend said Bowman.
Junior Elite Tour
Bowman also said that the players who have been called to the trials will be on the road for the Junior Elite Tour which will begin early next month.
The players will take on Georgetown’s top club teams and travel to Linden, Berbice and Kwakwani to take on the top club teams as well as combined teams of the best players from those areas.
According to Bowman the tour is intended to help the IGG prospects gain experience against organized teams which will provide a challenge for them as they intensify preparation for a successful title defence later this year .
