Adri­an Joseph, Mori­ba De­Fre­itas and Nathy­on Lewis have made the short­list of play­ers for the men’s bas­ket­ball team for the FI­BA 3x3 Amer­iCup Bas­ket­ball Tour­na­ment in Mi­a­mi, Flori­da in the Unit­ed States which is set from No­vem­ber 3-6.

The trio was mem­bers of the team who rep­re­sent­ed T&T at last year’s com­pe­ti­tion that took place in Mi­a­mi but did T&T not progress out of the pre­lim­i­nary rounds, are up for se­lec­tion to the men’s team. The NBFTT has short­list­ed 16 men play­ers from which the fi­nal team of four will be se­lect­ed.

Joseph along with Kem­rick Julien, who is al­so short­list­ed, rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the Birm­ing­ham 2022 Com­mon­wealth Games in Eng­land in Ju­ly/Au­gust and again the team did not progress out of the pre­lim­i­nary round af­ter los­ing all three match­es.

Team Beast, which in­clud­ed Joseph and Julien to­geth­er with De­Fre­itas and Lewis, fin­ished sec­ond in last week­end’s Se­nior Men’s Team Tri­al Tour­na­ment host­ed by the Na­tion­al Bas­ket­ball Fed­er­a­tion of T&T (NBFTT) at the Mal­oney In­door Sports Are­na.

Beast was beat­en by team Big 4 whose quar­tet com­prised of Je­lani Val­ley, the cap­tain, the twin broth­ers Ah­keel and Ah­keem Boyd and Jael Lewis, in the fi­nal, 14-10 which pro­vid­ed a plat­form for play­ers to be as­sessed in a com­pet­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment, and the for­mat it­self fur­ther con­tributed to T&T’s Na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion Rank­ing.

The Boyd twin, and Lewis, who made up the team that rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the Youth Pan Am (Un­der-23) Games in Cali, Colom­bia last year, and Val­ley, who was ini­tial­ly on the the team but could not make the trip, are al­so chal­leng­ing for a spot on the four-play­er na­tion­al team for the Amer­iCup tour­na­ment.

So too, “Most Valu­able Play­er” at the re­cent Bas­ket­ball Fi­es­ta Leon Free­dom of the Mal­oney Pac­ers bas­ket­ball club and de­vel­op­men­tal pro­gramme.

The 16 play­ers short­list­ed are sched­uled to be­gin train­ing ahead of the Amer­iCup.

Mean­while, ac­cord­ing to the NBFTT, based on the num­ber of women play­ers that ex­pressed in­ter­est in try­ing out for spots on the Women’s 3x3 Amer­iCup team, there was no tri­al tour­na­ment and the play­ers were all short­list­ed for the train­ing squad.

Kielle Con­nel­ly (Po­lice) and Nikiya Bap­tiste (Bri­an Chase Acad­e­my), who were part of the na­tion­al women’s team at last year’s Amer­iCup, are among the 14 play­ers chal­leng­ing for a spot when train­ing be­gins.

Short­lists

Men: Chris­t­ian Arthur, Ah­keel Boyd, Ah­keem Boyd, Mori­ba De­Fre­itas, Jer­rell Door­bal, Leon Free­dom, Clint Gra­ham, Michael Jerome, Kem­rick Julien, Adri­an Joseph, Kyeon Joseph, Jael Lewis, Nathy­on Lewis, Ker­ry McMil­lan, Je­lani Val­ley, Charles Williams

Women: Kielle Con­nel­ly, Nikiya Bap­tiste, Jil­lisa Brig­gs, Tama­ra Hen­ry, Jah­mia Lewis, Jameela Mc­Carthy, Afeisha Noel, Jel­lene Richard­son, Azari­ah Rivers, Kamil­lah Sobers, Kaleeya Songui, Stephanie Stephen, Shaki­ra Thomp­son, Al­li­son Young.