Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) men’s head-coach Junior Hercules, has confirmed that experienced player Delroy James will arrive on local shores on March 31st and captain Stanton Rose will participate in his first training session on Saturday.
This was divulged during a brief interview with Stabroek Sport yesterday. According to Hercules, James, whose scheduled arrival was made possible by Nigel Hinds Financial Services, will arrive to form part of the training session alongside Rose.
He declared, “Delroy James is booked to arrive on the 31st of March. He is for certain. I am excited to have a player of this calibre, who would have played in the USA, Europe and South America and is very much active. He brings with him a wealth of experience that the players, coaching staff and the country will be able to benefit from. He will also bear a heavy offensive responsibility given his quality. We are expected to be in the other country on April 12th, which means we will have access to James for about two weeks.”
Hercules also spoke of Rose’s upcoming presence on local shores.
“Stanton Rose has been brought in and is expected to make his first practice this Saturday coming. It means now I have a starting guard that will be able to orchestrate the team’s offence, I want to see where his conditioning is.”
The Guyana men’s senior basketball programme, which is the highest ranked unit participating in the first round of the event, will arrive in the Central American nation on April 12. They are expected to depart seven days later. The first round of qualifiers will be conducted utilising a group format, with the top three finishers progressing to the second round of qualifiers set for July 2021.
Among the four teams that will compete in the first qualifying stage scheduled for April, the Guyanese are ranked 100. Guyana’s peak ranking of 98 was attained in November 2020. The other three nations, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and El Salvador, are ranked 106, 116 and 133 respectively.
Presently, Guyana’s reduced provisional roster features both local and overseas based players in the form of Travis Belgrave, Akeem Crandon, Anthony Moe, Nikkoloi Smith, Yannick Tappin, Timothy Thompson, Ray Victor, Shaine Webster, Terron Welch, Kevon Wiggins, Harold Adams, Jamal Gilkes, Israel Yaw, Shelroy Thomas, Dominique Vincente and Jason Ramrattan. On the management side, Alex Graham has been confirmed as the Team Manager, while Dennis Clarke is the assistant coach.
