Basketball federation expands provisional pool
With official training for the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 Pre-Qualifiers penciled to start Saturday, the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) has opted to increase their provisional squad to 27 members.
This was revealed by head-coach Junior Hercules yesterday during a brief interview with Stabroek Sport.
According to Hercules, “We decided to expand the pool of players primarily because of the large period of inactivity and the uncertainty surrounding CoVID19. We expect the inactivity on the part of the players to have a negative impact on players conditioning/mindset and for this reason also, we thought it wise to increase the pool of players.”
The GABF initially had named a 13member provisional roster headed by CBC winning captain Stanton Rose and which featured both local and overseasbased players in the form of Travis Belgrave, Travis Burnett, Akeem Crandon, Delroy James, Anthony Moe, Nikkoloi Smith, Yannick Tappin, Timothy Thompson, Ray Victor, Shaine Webster, Terron Welch and Kevon Wiggins.
They have now added Harold Adams, Orlan Glasgow, Jamal Gilkes, Israel Yaw, Shelroy Thomas, Richard Semple, Dominique Vincente, Jason Ramrattan, Nathan Saul, Shamar France, Ryan Short, Emanuel Atherly, Linden Adams and
Jonathan Browne to the training setup.
According to Hercules, the expectation is for the selected players to work hard and aim to secure berths on the roster. He added that the immediate aim of the training period is to physically condition the players so that they can perform at the optimal level.
“My expectation for the training is for players to come prepared to work hard and to challenge each other for a spot on the final 12. My immediate training focus is to get players conditioned to the point of being able to play and adapt competitively amongst themselves without being fatigue or burnout.”
The prestigious tournament is scheduled to be hosted from February 17th-21st in the Central American nation of El Salvador. The GABF has officially released their first provisional list of players for national team training. Alex Graham has been confirmed as the Team Manager. The Assistant Coach is yet to be identified for the prestigious qualifier.