An­drew Gioan­net­ti

The ten play­ers which will make up the T&T women's na­tion­al team, will leave to­day for the Ba­hamas to take part in the Caribbean Bas­ket­ball Con­fed­er­a­tion (CBC) Cham­pi­onship which be­gins on Wednes­day.

The play­ers set to ar­rive in Ba­hamas to­mor­row are Pietra Gay, Ch­enell Har­ris, Rhea Co­dio, Ayan­na Phillip, Jonee Bil­ly, Miri­am Seales, Jowan Or­te­ga, Melis­sa Guerero, Rachael Thomp­son-King and An­no­la Charles, along with coach Ivan Flo­res, as­sis­tant coach Trevor Mc Leod, train­er Roland Cam­bridge and Oba­di­ah Ash­er- Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Bas­ket­ball Fed­er­a­tion of T&T (NBFT&T). Stand­outs Shaki­ra Clarke and Tonya Aaron are un­able to trav­el due to FI­BA re­stric­tions on play­ers who have re­ceived pass­ports over the age of 16 years for coun­tries they wish to rep­re­sent but were not born in. The lim­it of one play­er per squad of such cir­cum­stance.

Ac­cord­ing to Ash­er, an ap­peal has been sent to FI­BA on Aaron's stance and giv­en that the rul­ing is re­versed, Aaron may trav­el to the Ba­hamas on Tues­day. The six teams in the tour­na­ment, T&T, the Ba­hamas, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Cu­ba, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and the Vir­gin Is­lands will play each oth­er in a round robin for­mat over the course of five days at the Sir Kendall Isaacs

Gym­na­si­um, Nas­sau. T&T will be­gin its ti­tle chal­lenge against Cu­ba on the open­ing day of the tour­na­ment on Wednes­day at 5 pm. On Thurs­day, T&T will bat­tle host na­tion Ba­hamas at 8 pm. Then from Fri­day to Sun­day, T&T will take on St Vin­cent, Vir­gin Is­lands and Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic re­spec­tive­ly.

Pietra Gay, who is both a play­er, and the as­sis­tant coach of the women's team be­lieves that the team is pre­pared for the tour­na­ment de­spite a short­age in the num­ber and qual­i­ty of of pre-tour­na­ment match­es.

"The team is ready to play de­spite the fact that we weren't put up against the most suit­able op­po­si­tion for prepa­ra­tion of the tour­na­ment," Gay said.

Ash­er had a sim­i­lar stance, "I re­al­ly ex­pect them to do well. Any­thing be­sides a medal win­ning first or sec­ond place fin­ish would be a dis­ap­point­ment. They (the play­ers) played very hard in their prepa­ra­tion, train­ing late hours." Asked about the teams in which he is most wary of, Ash­er re­spond­ed, "Cu­ba and maybe the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic. Ba­hamas will have an edge on some teams with their home ad­van­tage."

Tour­na­ment Sched­ule

Wednes­day-Cu­ba v T&T, 5 pm

Thurs­day-Ba­hamas v T&T, 8 pm

Fri­day-St Vin­cent v T&T, 4 pm

Sat­ur­day-T&T v Vir­gin Is­lands, 6 pm

Sun­day-T&T v Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, 1 pm