Kevin Sunich

Guard/for­ward Mau­rice Joseph with a game-high 27 points helped T&T men's bas­ket­ball team to a com­fort­able 20-point win, 104-84 over Mex­i­can Pro­fes­sion­al team Leon Lecheueros in the Gua­na­ju­a­to In­vi­ta­tion­al Tour­na­ment, in Mex­i­co, on Wednes­day night. Joseph, who cur­rent­ly plays in Ver­mont, USA, sank nine of his 11 at­tempts from the field. He re­ceived valu­able sup­port from guard Ian Young, who scored 17 points and had eight as­sists. For­ward/cen­tre Kib­we Trim, who plays in Ro­ma­nia, scored 15 points and grabbed 13 re­bounds. Na­tion­al Club Cham­pi­onships Most Valu­able-Play­er, for­ward Steven "Lighter" Lewis, of the De­fence Force, and guard Wen­dell Carter sup­port­ed with ten points each.

Led by 27 points from Carter, T&T opened the tour­na­ment on Mon­day night with an 83-82 win over a Los An­gles All­star team. Joseph had 15, while Trim and Lewis had 11 and ten points re­spec­tive­ly. The T&T bas­ket­ballers will have a chance to avenge their de­feat at the hands of Cu­ba in the 2009 Caribbean Bas­ket­ball Cham­pi­onships (CBC) in the third place match. The match was slat­ed for last night. The twin-is­land team, un­der the watch­ful eyes of Amer­i­can Ter­ry Lay­ton who led the team at the CBC cham­pi­onships, is us­ing the tour­na­ment as part of its prepa­ra­tion for the up­com­ing 2010 Cen­trobas­ket Cham­pi­onships slat­ed for the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic from Ju­ly 5-11.