Guyana’s senior men’s basketball team captain and University of St. Mary’s rising star Stanton Rose, said yesterday that he is totally focused on the upcoming FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 pre-qualifiers.
Rose made the disclosure to Stabroek Sports in an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sports following his recent arrival on local shores to join the training camp.
“I am laser focused right now and this one [tournament is] more important than the previous ones because I think this is the first time we’ll be competing in this type of tourney. So this is very, very important to our nation,” he said.
Rose secured his place in local history after leading the Guyana men’s side to the FIBA Americup 2021 Caribbean pre-qualifying championships.
Guyana defeated Antigua and Barbuda 83-70 in the final of the event which was hosted in Suriname.
Rose stated that the team possesses the quality to progress to the second round of the competition adding that while the roster is littered with talented younger players, the team possesses a fearless mentality and will stand up to any challenge.
He expounded, “It’s always to come out victorious no matter what the team looks like or is structured. I’d say (Yes) we do have the quality to advance to the next round. We have a lot of youth with talent. We also have guys with great experience and we’re fearless and will take it to anyone standing in front of us!”
Rose said that he was eager to be back training with the team.
“It’s good to be with the team, I’ve been looking forward to this opportunity for a while and I can tell that we have a good bunch of guys here. Not where we want to be but in due time we’ll be that team that will bring the championship back to the homeland.”
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, Junior Hercules is the head-coach while Alex Graham is the manager and Dennis Clarke the assistant coach.
