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Time for GABF momentum shift to Bahamas
David Patterson
By Edison Jefford
After successfully hosting a Coaches’ Course over the last week, the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) momentum must instantaneously shift to the Caribbean Championships to be held during July 25-August 9 in the Bahamas.
In the coming weeks, the federation will prove, or disprove, its administrative relevance with two urgent matters that need its full attention. Domestically, the federation is still to announce what is the final platform for the selection of Guyana’s national team.
Internationally, a trip to Bahamas would be negligible without addressing the domestic issue that is to simply get on with the final of the National Club Championships.
The local candidates, who will be seeking national selection, will emerge from the final. Yet this has to be a careful process for the federation since players and coaches are most likely to argue that the tournament and not the final is the yardstick for selection. However, the federation knows that it has limited time to be caught in bureaucracy.
July is next month and one doubts that the GABF have enough time to round up a 30-man squad, for instance, then have the squad reduced through different phases of elimination. The federation simply does not have the time to undergo such processes.
The next moves for the GABF are crucial. First, they must address the domestic issues which are one, bring together Ravens and Courts Pacesetters for the Club Championship Final, and two, the national shortlist must emerge following this deciding game.
The final was supposed to have been held more than four weeks ago, but Courts Pacesetters were forced to withdraw following a personal engagement of their coach. Following the postponement the federation moved right into Tom Newell’s Coaching Clinic.
History is history; the way forward is what matters and the fact is Guyana will return to the event in the Bahamas since a totally foreign composition represented the country in Puerto Rico a little less than four years ago. The situation is slightly different now.
In 2007, the local players were denied US visas that prevented them from travelling to the United States island of Puerto Rico.
Conversely, local players will be able to make the team that is likely to have the best overseas-based Guyanese players this summer.
So with that issue partially solved, the federation must shift its focus to selecting the best players available locally to join forces with their foreign counter-parts.
They cannot do that without what they had identified as their yardstick for selection, the club contest. Guyana has been classed with Jamaica, Virgin Islands, Antigua and Barbuda and Turks & Caicos for the Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC) Championships in Group ‘A’. The federation has less than six weeks to put together a final composition.
In addition to naming the national male senior team, there must be time allotted for the local and international players to gel as a unit.
All those factors, combined, are the ingredients that will tell us, in the preparatory stages, how Guyana is likely to perform.
The GABF can help ease some of the psychological pressure with clear, and justifiable, decisions in the coming weeks.
Proactive planning will help them see the Ravens and Pacesetter final as an opportunity to raise funds to send the team to the Bahamas.
The federation could market the final as a fundraiser for the team. Generally, the days ahead will tell us about the administrative strength of the GABF.
Their management of this major task gives us enough insight about the future of basketball in Guyana.
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