… face Jamaica tonight
DOUBTS had surrounded Guyana’s National Women’s basketball team with regard to their participation at this year’s Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC) tournament, as the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) battled to secure the necessary funds.
The team arrived in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) last Sunday night and will play their first game of the tournament tonight against 2006 and 2009 champions Jamaica.
Question: Should the GABF have fielded a women’s team to this year’s tournament, given the fact that no more than two games were played in almost a year and their lack of preparation?
But coach Ann Gordon, while acknowledging Guyana’s lack of preparedness, said: “If these girls really focus and work extra hard, I believe we will do well. What I know is that we will work hard, we have to work hard and as coach I have to find a way to push these girls and motivate them. We understand the position that we’re in at this point but these girls are hungry and will go there and give their best.”
It’s been 18 years since Guyana’s historic Championship (1996) in Trinidad and Tobago under coach Linden ‘Sancho’ Alphonso. To date, it remains Guyana’s only victory at the regional tournament. The men’s highest finish was second (losing to Barbados) in 1994.
Gordon said that Guyana will be the underdogs at the tournament and she will make sure her troops exploit their chances when given, adding “people will underestimate us and I will make sure we take advantage of that. It’s just a matter of how well we apply ourselves, don’t get nervous and just play what we know. I think we’ll be fine.”
Guyana’s first game is against a hungry Jamaican team whose roster is filled with players who represented the Land of Wood and Water at last year’s FIBA Americas Championship for Women last September in Mexico.
The local ladies are also grouped with 2011 runners-up Trinidad and Tobago who represented the CBC at the 2012 Centrobasket for women where the Jamaicans also finished fifth.
St Vincent and the Grenadines make up the fourth team in Group B of the eight-team championship and feature most of their players from the 2010 Centrobasket.
It would be interesting to see how the Guyanese, none of whom has ever faced competition of this magnitude before, will compete against their regional counterparts.
Nigel Hinds, president of the GABF, joined coach Gordon in being confident of the team’s success at the championship, but a realistic look at the championship and the teams from the other countries will show that Guyana will experience a tough time.
The tour would be a means of exposing the players, who dedicated their time and effort to basketball in Guyana, to competition that they have never faced in their careers.
Good luck to the ladies!
(By Rawle Toney)