Guyana to defend CBC title in February

Dec 02, 2022 Sports

By Rawle Toney

Kaieteur News – In 2018, behind a hotshot point guard and captain, Stanton Rose Jr, Guyana lifted the Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC) Championship after defeating Antigua and Barbuda 83 – 70 at the Anthony Nesty indoor facility in Suriname, Paramaribo.

The win for Guyana meant that the John Yates Trophy had returned to Guyana.

Yates, in 1981, pioneered the Caribbean Basketball Championship, with the inaugural tournament hosted at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.

Guyana had never won the title for the tournament, formerly known as the CARICOM Championships, until a team led by an 18-year-old point guard from Kwakwani invaded Suriname, where the 2018 tournament was held, and won the trophy named after the man who fashioned the regional showpiece.

However, after five years of holding the trophy, Guyana will have to put the CBC title on the line.

Basketball’s global-governing body, FIBA, released their calendar of activities for 2023 and set for February is the CBC Championship.

There’s no host nation just yet for the tournament, president of the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) Michael Singh told Kaieteur News, but he said the country will have to start making preparations.

FLASHBACK! Travis Burnett (sitting) with (from left) Anthony Moe along with Stanton Rose, Travis Belgrave, Kevon Wiggins and Timothy Thompson pose for a photo with the CBC trophy in 2018.

The defending champions, Singh said, will have to start training in January.

The CBC tournament will act a gateway to the Confederación Centroamericana de Baloncesto (COCABA) and FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 Qualifiers.

The team’s composition, training squad, and coach are unknown.

Dating back to the tenure of Nigel Hinds and a trend that continued under Singh, Guyana has attended almost all the international competitions under FIBA at various levels within their region and sub-region.

Sponsorship has been an area of contention for the GABF, and it will be interesting to see how they connect with corporate Guyana and Government for support.

While the women would’ve hoisted the title in 1996 when the tournament was hosted in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana’s best placing in the Men’s tournament came in 1994 when the event was hosted in Georgetown and saw the team losing to Jamaica in the finals.

The closest Guyana came to their 1994 feat was in 2000 when they finished third in Barbados. Spearheaded then by Lugard Mohan, they brushed aside Belize 87 – 67.

Rose was named Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the tournament in Suriname for his sensational performances, which also include a tournament-high 41 points performance which came in Guyana’s 104 – 102 double overtime win against St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Rose, who totalled 106 points (third overall), led the tournament in steals, totalling 15 at an average of 2.5 per game, was third in points per game (17.7), third in assist per game, eighth in Rebounds per game and was the fourth best efficient player.

He will go down in history as the youngest (18-years old) to ever captain Guyana at the CBC Champion, and the first captain to bring Guyana their ‘elusive’ title.

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