Kevin Sunich

T&T's men's bas­ket­ball team has gained qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the 2010 Cen­trobas­ket tour­na­ment to be staged in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic from Ju­ly 5-11. This will be the first time in 20 years that the twin-is­land men will be com­pet­ing in the tour­na­ment. Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Caribbean Bas­ket­ball Con­fed­er­a­tion (CBC), Sab­ri­na Mitchell, of St Vin­cent and the Grenadines said T&T was giv­en the life­line by FI­BA Amer­i­c­as. "The gov­ern­ing body, FI­BA Amer­i­c­as, de­cid­ed to add a fourth CBC team, mov­ing away from the norm of three teams. The body felt that the big is­land teams were qual­i­fy­ing all the time and the small­er is­lands were not be­ing giv­en a chance. The in­clu­sion of a fourth team will now give a small is­land the chance to ex­pe­ri­ence the high­er lev­el of bas­ket­ball be­ing played and al­so give it a chance to im­prove," said Mitchell.

T&T's qual­i­fi­ca­tion was based on its fourth place fin­ish at the 2009 CBC Cham­pi­onships in Tor­to­la, BVI, last Ju­ly. The last time T&T ap­peared at the Cen­tro cham­pi­onships was back in 1989 when it fin­ished ninth. CBC's Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary said the de­ci­sion was rat­i­fied at its an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing (AGM) held on Sat­ur­day in Tor­to­la, British Vir­gin Is­lands. T&T was rep­re­sent­ed by Na­tion­al Bas­ket­ball Fed­er­a­tion of Trinidad & To­ba­go (NBFTT) pres­i­dent, Bri­an Man­ning, who was of­fi­cial­ly in­formed of the tour­na­ment team ros­ter. This year's tour­na­ment will al­so see an in­crease in the par­tic­i­pat­ing teams from eight to ten.

The par­tic­i­pants are Be­lize, British Vir­gin Is­lands, Cu­ba, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Ja­maica, Mex­i­co, Pana­ma, Puer­to Ri­co, T&T and US Vir­gin Is­lands. The clas­si­fi­ca­tion of Be­lize de­pends on the ap­peal re­sult sent to Lau­sanne, Switzer­land about the el­i­gi­bil­i­ty of some of their play­ers that were in the 2009 CO­CA­BA Cham­pi­onship. The top four teams from this tour­na­ment will qual­i­fy for the 2011 FI­BA Amer­i­c­as Cham­pi­onship (Pre-Olympic) tour­na­ment; while the top eight qual­i­fy for the 2010 Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games in Mayagez, Puer­to Ri­co and the top three for the 2011 Pan Amer­i­can Games sched­uled for Guadala­jara, Mex­i­co. At the 2008 Cen­trobas­ket Tour­na­ment T&T women fin­ished fifth in the eight-team event.