The Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) officially commenced preparation yesterday for the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 Pre-Qualifiers at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall, Homestretch Avenue.
This was confirmed by head-coach Junior Hercules yesterday during a brief interview with Stabroek Sport.
According to Hercules, the players, despite the prolonged lack of activity due to the COVID-19 situation, adapted well to the opening sessions, which was certainly pleasing to the management staff.
“The session was good, in the sense that I was very pleased at the adherence of the players. They were observing the protocols and to a large extent, they pushed themselves during the sessions. It was a positive start, there were no injuries, and players were adaptive and eager to the pointers and areas of focus.”
Hercules said the turnout was under 50 per cent.
“Of the 27 players in the provisional squad of which six are foreign-based, we had shy of 40 percent turnout which is entirely locally based players.
“It’s common to have a lower turnout in the first session, close to 50 % is common and as we progress, the numbers increase.”
Hercules also disclosed that the focus of the initial training period will be on physical conditioning, noting that the cultivation of a mindset to compete at a higher level is being fostered during the sessions.
He declared, “We stressed conditioning, we also stressed the mindset for which players are asked not to compete amongst the players that they see, but to envision a higher level of competition since that is the benchmark which we are trying to achieve. We had two hours today (yesterday) of training, and we will have two hours tomorrow (today).”
According to Hercules, who also serves as the lead tactician of Plaisance Guardians, defensive strategies and systems will be the topic during the month of February.
He added that offensive patterns and schemes will be the focus heading into the final stretch of preparation.
“The first two weeks the focus will be conditioning which will take us into February, then after we can now start working on our defensive system and strategy. We have a timeframe of February to March in terms of preparation, which is two months, the latter part of the two months is where the focus will shift to offence. The first two stages will be conditioning and offence,” he explained.
The prestigious tournament is scheduled to be hosted during the month of April in the Central American nation of El Salvador. Veteran sport administrator Alex Graham has been confirmed as the Team Manager. The assistant coach is yet to be identified.
The GABF provisional roster, which is headed by CBC winning captain Stanton Rose, features both local and overseas based players in the form of Travis Belgrave, Travis Burnett, Akeem Crandon, Delroy James, Anthony Moe, Nikkoloi Smith, Yannick Tappin, Timothy Thompson, Ray Victor, Shaine Webster, Terron Welch, Kevon Wiggins, Harold Adams, Orlan Glasgow, Jamal Gilkes, Israel Yaw, Shelroy Thomas, Richard Semple, Dominique Vincente, Jason Ramrattan, Nathan Saul, Shamar France, Ryan Short, Emanuel Atherly, Linden Adams and Jonathan Browne.
