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National B/ball team is one of Guyana’s best
– says Coach, Mark Agard
By Edison Jefford
National Senior Men’s Basketball Coach, Mark Agard, believes that the team that will represent Guyana at the u
Mark Agard
pcoming Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC) Championships in Tortola, British Virgin Islands, July 1-12, will be one of the country’s best.
Agard, who will be making his debut as Senior Men’s Coach at CBC along with assistant Darcel Harris, who has been the most successful locally-based coach in the last year, was giving insight into the quality of the team at the Windjammer International Hotel.
“We are sending one of Guyana’s best teams out there and hopefully we can come back with the Championship Trophy. You are just seeing me, but I have a whole lot of people working with me to ensure that we get the best result,” Agard said.
The former national point guard and Coach of the Pepsi Sonic Basketball Club believes that the addition of the five or more overseas-based players has lifted the game of the locally-based ball players to the point that Guyana is getting to its true potential.
“The locally-based players have stepped up their game and we’re getting some great basketball,” Agard said, adding that with 24 players looking to make the final cut, there is a lot of offence on the roster, but that has to change over the next two weeks.
“We have to be more defensively coordinated, we have to get stops, but I believe we will be well represented this year,” Agard assured. He believes that local basketball could consistently benefit from such exposure and exchanges with the support of corporate Guyana.
Apart from former NBA player, Rawle Marshall, who will no doubt lead the squad in the BVI in two weeks, Guyana has recalled its international players from the Caribbean, North America and Europe in an effort of putting its best team in Tortola.
Asked when he will be naming his team, Agard said that this weekend 12 players will be named along with three standbys for the 15-player squad. Marshall was especially interested in the team being reduced as soon as possible to narrow the focus.
The team is visibly overwhelmed with a lot of quality guards and small forwards. As such, Agard was asked if the absence of a true centre on their roster will have an impact on their performance and he assured that Guyana “will be looking to exploit advantages”.
The male team leaves for BVI on June 29 and will be headlining the night of July 1. Practice has been intense these past weeks in an effort to deliver Guyana’s first Men’s CBC title. Guyana was second to Barbados in 1994 when that country hosted the event.
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