Spar­tans TT over­came an ear­ly dou­ble-dig­it deficit to de­feat Bronx 100-78 in the Cham­pi­onship match and claimed the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) Lega­cy Bas­ket­ball ti­tle.

The vic­to­ry capped off a spec­tac­u­lar night on Holy Thurs­day at the UWI Sport and Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tre (UWIS­PEC), which was trans­formed in­to a caul­dron of en­er­gy for some 700 roar­ing fans in St Au­gus­tine.

​The fi­nal of the in­vi­ta­tion­al tour­na­ment be­gan with Bronx look­ing like the team to beat. Their in­te­ri­or duo of Mar­vin Cado­gan and Justin Mitchell ex­ploit­ed the paint ear­ly, slic­ing through Spar­tans TT’s sig­na­ture full-court pres­sure to build a com­mand­ing lead.

​How­ev­er, the mo­men­tum shift­ed vi­o­lent­ly in the third quar­ter. As foul trou­ble be­gan to plague the Bronx ros­ter, Spar­tans TT ig­nit­ed a 14-1 run that they nev­er looked back from.

​William Fran­cis, the even­tu­al Fi­nals “Most Valu­able Play­er” (MVP), led the charge with a dou­ble-dou­ble of 16 points and 11 re­bounds, adding six steals to an­chor the de­fence. Ja­son Best pro­vid­ed the spark for the come­back, near­ly hit­ting a triple-dou­ble with nine points, nine re­bounds, and sev­en steals.

Spar­tansTT’s dom­i­nance ex­tend­ed across the stats sheet, fin­ish­ing with 54 re­bounds, 14 as­sists, 5 steals, and 3 blocks as a team.

​De­spite a valiant ef­fort from tour­na­ment top scor­er Devin Collins with 19 points and six re­bounds and Mikiel “Ran­go” Phillips with 20 points, sev­en re­bounds and six as­sists, Bronx was un­done by 27 turnovers and foul trou­ble proved cost­ly down the stretch, al­low­ing Spar­tansTT to run away with the $10,000 grand prize. Bronx had to set­tled for the $6,000 sec­ond-placed prize.

<South­side Elite se­cure third place>

​The night’s open­ing act saw South­side Elite claim the bronze and the third-placed prize of $4,000 with a 69-57 win over the New Chap­ter Acad­e­my (NCA) War­riors.

South­side Elite came out ag­gres­sive and com­posed, tak­ing ear­ly con­trol and main­tain­ing it through­out. They built their ad­van­tage through bal­anced scor­ing and strong work on the glass, fin­ish­ing with 57 team re­bounds, 13 as­sists, and 10 steals.

Lead­ing the way was Ja­son Fri­day, who de­liv­ered a stand­out per­for­mance with 21 points and 15 re­bounds, con­trol­ling both ends of the floor.

​Le­shaun Al­fred, who was lat­er named “Tour­na­ment MVP” and “Best De­fend­er”, show­cased the two-way dom­i­nance that made South­side Elite a force through­out the com­pe­ti­tion.

For NCA War­riors, Chris­t­ian Far­num bat­tled hard with 22 points, 13 re­bounds and sev­en steals while Jo­van George chipped in with 11 points. De­spite their fourth-quar­ter push, War­riors could not close the gap.

​Be­yond the scores

Tour­na­ment or­gan­is­er & UWI head coach Kern George praised the over­whelm­ing fan sup­port and em­pha­sised the tour­na­ment’s role in push­ing the game for­ward: “This is the di­rec­tion bas­ket­ball in T&T is head­ing—high-lev­el com­pe­ti­tion, pro­fes­sion­al pre­sen­ta­tion, and a prod­uct the peo­ple can tru­ly ral­ly be­hind.”

In­di­vid­ual Awards

Tour­na­ment MVP & Best De­fend­er: Le­shaun Al­fred (South­side Elite)

Top scor­er: Devin Collins (Bronx)

Fi­nals MVP: William Fran­cis (Spar­tansTT)

Prizes

​1st Place: Spar­tans TT — $10,000

​2nd Place: Bronx — $6,000

​3rd Place: South­side Elite — $4,000