Kevin Sunich

The women bas­ket­ball squad short­list­ed to rep­re­sent T&T at the Cen­trobas­ket Cham­pi­onship in Puer­to Ri­co, start­ed train­ing yes­ter­day at the Jean Pierre Com­plex, a day af­ter the men start­ed at the Ma­yaro In­door Fa­cil­i­ty. Na­tion­al Bas­ket­ball Fed­er­a­tion of T&T (NBFT&T) vice pres­i­dent Or­gan­i­sa­tion and De­vel­op­ment Earl Noel said that while the coach­es have not yet been ap­proved by the Fed­er­a­tion, the women had their first ses­sion un­der the guid­ance of Bar­ry Stew­art, the head­coach of Strak­er Nets team.

Noel said his com­mit­tee fin­ished its re­port for the se­lec­tion of the coach­es yes­ter­day and the names will be sub­mit­ted for ap­proval at the Board of Di­rec­tors meet­ing sched­ule to take place to­day. The board is ex­pect­ed to rat­i­fy the re­port and there­after the coach­es to lead the men's and women's teams will be an­nounced. T&T is al­ready be­hind the eight ball in terms of prepa­ra­tion as the tour­na­ment is ex­pect­ed to bounce off from Ju­ly 5-10 in San­to Domin­go for the men, while the women ver­sion takes place in Puer­to Ri­co. Both teams have al­so qual­i­fied for the CAC Games in Puer­to Ri­co (Men from Ju­ly 24-31 and the women from Ju­ly 17-24).

Mean­while, pres­i­dent of the Bas­ket­ball Coach­es As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (BCAT&T) Clement Hold­er feels that the teams will not be ready for the chal­lenges of the tour­na­ments. "This is not the Caribbean Bas­ket­ball Cham­pi­onships, last year the team pre­pared for un­der three weeks and came fourth in a tour­na­ment void of three top teams, but this is a to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent bat­tle ground. This tour­na­ment will bring out the best in the Cen­trobas­ket re­gion, giv­ing a team less than three weeks to pre­pare is un­for­tu­nate," said Hold­er, who was the men's se­nior team coach in 1996, 98 and 2007.

Hold­er, who said his fo­cus now is to as­sist in the de­vel­op­ment of coach­es and the Coach­ing As­so­ci­a­tion.