Ah­keel “Smal­ly” Boyd, a stand­out play­er at the Pan Amer­i­can Games, and 17-year-old Caris­sa Ram­di­al are nom­i­nees for the re­spec­tive se­nior Sports­man and Sports­woman awards for bas­ket­ball at the 29th an­nu­al awards cer­e­mo­ny of T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) set to take place at the Port-of-Spain Ball­room, Hy­att Re­gency on Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, to­mor­row (Fri­day).

The duo was among four ath­letes named for the top awards by the Na­tion­al Bas­ket­ball Fed­er­a­tion of T&T (NBFTT) on Wednes­day via a re­lease. The oth­ers are Chris Jay­dond Roberts and Maya Ray­mond, who were nom­i­nat­ed for the ju­nior ver­sions of the awards.

Boyd, 24, was the out­stand­ing play­er for T&T at the Pan Amer­i­can Games in Chile in Oc­to­ber. The point guard along with twin broth­er Ah­keel “Fat­to” Boyd, Chike Au­gus­tine, and Mori­ba De Fre­itas helped T&T win a his­toric bronze medal. He was the top scor­er in four of the five match­es T&T con­test­ed with 13, 11, and five and in the bronze-medal match win against Venezuela (21-20), he top-scored with 12 points.

Boyd al­so helped Mal­oney Pac­ers win the Na­tion­al 3x3 Tour­na­ment in June af­ter they de­feat­ed Va­len­cia Heat 22-14 in the fi­nal in which he scored eight points. Some 16 teams from the North, East, and South zones par­tic­i­pat­ed in qual­i­fy­ing tour­na­ments. He has been de­vel­op­ing his skills from age 11 with sev­er­al teams Mal­oney Pac­ers, Sto­ries Of Suc­cess, and De­tour Shak At­tack. He has rep­re­sent­ed T&T in Saint Lu­cia, Ja­maica, Colom­bia, the USA, and Chile.

Ram­di­al is an­oth­er of the bas­ket­ball ris­ing stars who con­tin­ues to build from her 2021 Cen­trobas­ket Cham­pi­onship ex­pe­ri­ence. The na­tion­al Un­der-16 stand­out con­tin­ues to shine as a key mem­ber of the Cen­tral Gwin­nett High School in Geor­gia, USA. The 17-year-old has played sev­en games since sign­ing with the school in Ju­ly/Au­gust and had out­stand­ing per­for­mances with points scored, as­sists, steals and re­bounds. The start­ing point guard at Cen­tral Gwin­nett High School which has a record of 7-1 on the year, has 19 as­sists, and 26 steals.

In the ju­nior cat­e­go­ry Roberts, 17, a Low­er-6 stu­dent at Bish­op’s High School, To­ba­go ex­celled dur­ing the 2023 Sec­ondary Schools Bas­ket­ball League sea­son. The six-foot, one-inch-tall point-guard won the Most Valu­able Play­er ho­n­our at the U-19 lev­el at the To­ba­go Zone Bas­ket­ball com­pe­ti­tion and rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the 2023 Ju­nior NBA camp 2023 and was ho­n­oured for his sports­man­ship.

Ray­mond is a very tal­ent­ed 15-year-old who at­tends Cara­pichaima West Sec­ondary School. She led her Ch­agua­nas-based club—Club En­ter­prise to win the FEM­BA U-15 ti­tle, the Mi­lo Vipers to the Fe­male Fi­es­ta League ti­tle. She al­so won sev­er­al in­di­vid­ual ti­tles in­clud­ing MVP, three-point shoot­ing, most points, and best U-15 play­er awards.

The nom­i­nees have cer­tain­ly been the bright spots for the NBFTT, who ad­mit­ted in the re­lease that this year has proven to be a very chal­leng­ing year for bas­ket­ball be­cause of the state that the new board met the sport in, fol­low­ing the Jan­u­ary 14 an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing (AGM) and the elec­tion of of­fi­cers.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease: “The NBFTT had some ad­min­is­tra­tive chal­lenges dur­ing 2022 but this new Board at­tempt­ed to over­come these with an in­clu­sive men­tal­i­ty to all stake­hold­ers af­ter the AGM in Jan­u­ary 2023.

“There were no Zon­al ac­tiv­i­ties which meant our 5 vs 5 bas­ket­ball pro­gramme was non-ex­is­tent and that was com­pound­ed by the fact that the new Board had no doc­u­ments to meet the re­quire­ments for fund­ing as stip­u­lat­ed by the Sport Com­pa­ny on Trinidad and To­ba­go, and the Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment to fund sev­er­al projects, one of which was the FI­BA 3x3 World Cup qual­i­fiers and the 2023 FI­BA Amer­iCup tour­na­ment and the new Board al­so set out to re­build the im­age of the sport.

“Fol­low­ing the NBFTT’s fail­ure to at­tend the 3x3 FI­BA World Cup qual­i­fiers and pay the Amer­iCup 3x3 Bas­ket­ball reg­is­tra­tion fees, the NBFTT has been sanc­tioned and FI­BA has asked the NBFTT to ex­plain what hap­pened. The NBFTT is await­ing FI­BA’s re­sponse. How­ev­er, this sit­u­a­tion is on­ly about the 3x3 bas­ket­ball pro­gramme.”

De­spite all the chal­lenges faced for the last 12 months, the NBFTT en­sured that bas­ket­ball was present at the Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and Caribbean (CAC) Games in El Sal­vador in June with play­ers - Au­gus­tine, Ah­keem Boyd, Nathy­on Lewis, and Tyrese Fields and un­der the guid­ance of coach Mi­lan Sta­menkovic and man­ag­er Wayne Samuel.

The his­toric bronze medal at the Pan Amer­i­can Games fol­lowed in Oc­to­ber with play­ers - Au­gus­tine, the Boyd broth­ers, and De Fre­itas un­der the guid­ance of Christo­pher Jack­son Charles (coach) and Wayne Samuel (man­ag­er). Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the NBFTT as­sem­bled a coach­ing staff that com­prised T&T’s two-time WN­BA play­er and for­mer na­tion­al as­sis­tant coach Pietra Gay, who is FI­BA qual­i­fied, and At­i­ba DeLeon to pre­pare the team.

The re­lease added: “The NBFTT fo­cus for 2024 will be to en­sure that its strate­gic plan takes full ef­fect with the re­vival of our Zones and a re­turn to 5vs 5 bas­ket­ball as has been the case with the South Zone which jumped off its 2023/2024 sea­son on De­cem­ber 2, with com­pe­ti­tion in the First Di­vi­sion and U-21 Age Group.

“The NBFTT is now fo­cus­ing on a hec­tic 2024 sea­son in which we have Ju­nior Cen­trobas­ket qual­i­fiers (U-15 and U-17) and se­nior men’s and women’s bas­ket­ball com­pe­ti­tion to field teams.”

In con­clu­sion, the re­lease stat­ed that “The NBFTT is al­so in the fi­nal plan­ning phase of the FI­BA Lev­el I Coach­ing Course and the NBFTT will al­so con­duct its Na­tion­al Lev­el I Cer­tifi­cate Coach­ing course as the NBFTT aims to im­prove the stan­dard of coach­ing in T&T.

On De­cem­ber 16, the NBFTT con­duct­ed back-to-back an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ings (AGM) which has nev­er been achieved since 2014, and the NBFTT has been work­ing with all zones to con­duct their AGMs which will be con­sti­tu­tion­al due be­tween Jan­u­ary and March 2024.

“This is al­so sig­nif­i­cant to en­sure that Zon­al ac­tiv­i­ties be­come para­mount when bas­ket­ball rolls in­to the New Year.”