—National coach Bobby Cadogan says local basketball players need to work on their fundamentals
By Floyd Christie
Coach of the President’s XII basketball team Robert ‘Bobby’ Cadogan said yesterday he was dissatisfied with the performance of the team which crashed to a 0-3 defeat against the Washington-based DC Jammers team recently.
The two-sides recently clashed in a best-of-three international series for the Godwin McPherson Memorial Trophy at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall with the visitors running out victors in all three matches.
“I’m not satisfied with the performance based on the talent that was available on the team,” Cadogan told Stabroek Sport in a telephone interview yesterday.
“We had home court advantage which we let go,” the former national player added.
The select President’s XII team, which was basically the national basketball team because of its composition, lost by close margins in all three encounters.
In the first game the local team was outclassed early in the game but eventually pulled it together in the latter stages of the game before going on to lose by 11 points (73-84).
The President’s XII matched their first game total in the second game of the series which they lost in overtime 73-80 after their captain Darcel Harris missed two critical game winning free throws at the end of regulation time.
Game Three saw the President’s XII being completely blown away by the visitors in the initial stages of the match before managing to haul themselves back into the game in the final quarter to cut the deficit and end the game with a respectable total of 68 to the DC Jammers 77 points.
Cadogan emphasized that the losses were mainly because of missed free throws and turnovers.
He pinpointed the team’s double figure turnovers as their “weak point” and blamed their poor free throw shooting for the loss of Game Two.
Cadogan, however, said there were a number of positives to be drawn from the series.
“Although we lost the three games, there were some positives that came out… the young players showed their readiness to step up to a higher level of play,” he stated.
“It was a good experience for most of the players. Although the team lost the team clearly had the potential to win,” he opined.
He blamed the Georgetown players for not making more use of the opportunity to shine and put themselves in the limelight as players from Linden were absent from the squad.
For next year’s Caricom Basketball Championships, where the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) will be aiming to participate, Cadogan said that the players “needed to work on the fundamentals of the game.”
He explained that some of the payers that were a part of the President’s XII team “will be competing for a spot on the national team for the Caricom Championships,” since overseas-based Guyanese players as well as overseas players with Guyanese parentage will all be in line to represent Guyana.
Players from the DC Jammers team are also eligible to fill spots on the team as they have done in the past, Cadogan stated.
“The players need to take it upon themselves to work on their weaknesses. They need to be more committed,” he added.
“If you love the game and you want to succeed at it, you have to make the sacrifice and work on your game,” Cadogan declared.