Nko­bi Ince de­liv­ered a spec­tac­u­lar per­for­mance and, with the sup­port of Zane Pe­ters, helped St Mary’s Col­lege edge out Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege San Fer­nan­do, 94-91, to open the RBC Roy­al Slam Col­lege Bas­ket­ball Tour­na­ment, which tipped off with a vi­brant open­ing cer­e­mo­ny at the East­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sport­ing Are­na in Tacarigua on Sun­day (Oct 5) evening.

Ince notched 33 points, pulled down nine re­bounds, and stole the ball four times while his team­mate Pe­ters con­tributed 21 points in the first thrilling match-up in the in­au­gur­al com­pe­ti­tion, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment in the fu­ture of youth sports and ed­u­ca­tion across the re­gion.

For Pre­sen­ta­tion, Michael Mc­Carthy post­ed a mon­strous dou­ble-dou­ble with 42 points, 16 re­bounds, and three blocks, while Justin Fran­cis added 11 points.

In the sec­ond con­test, Fa­ti­ma Col­lege de­feat­ed Holy Cross Col­lege with a dom­i­nant per­for­mance, 118-72.

Lead­ing the charge for Fa­ti­ma were Idri­is Mar­tin with 26 points and sev­en steals, Zachary Julien adding 25 points and eight steals, and William Fran­cis post­ing an im­pres­sive dou­ble-dou­ble with 20 points, 11 re­bounds, five steals, and two blocks.

The tour­na­ment, which is ded­i­cat­ed to el­e­vat­ing the pro­file of school bas­ket­ball, fos­ter­ing ath­let­ic tal­ent, and cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for stu­dent-ath­letes, is be­ing spon­sored by Roy­al Bank of Cana­da (RBC) and ex­e­cut­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Next Lev­el Per­for­mance (NLP) and the T&T Schools Bas­ket­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTS­BA).

It will show­case sev­en of the top col­lege bas­ket­ball pro­grammes com­pet­ing over four ac­tion-packed week­ends.

The open­ing cer­e­mo­ny was at­tend­ed by key stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing Garvin War­wick, pres­i­dent of NLP; Al­li­son Bas­t­ian, pres­i­dent of the TTS­BA; and Marc Jar­dine, RBC Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor.

The part­ner­ship with RBC, a glob­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion com­mit­ted to com­mu­ni­ty in­vest­ment and youth de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives, un­der­scores the bank’s com­mit­ment to fos­ter­ing ex­cel­lence, team­work, and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment through sport.

“We see this tour­na­ment as a di­rect in­vest­ment in the fu­ture lead­ers and ath­letes of T&T. RBC is im­mense­ly proud to sup­port an ini­tia­tive that not on­ly pro­vides elite com­pe­ti­tion but al­so cre­ates mean­ing­ful path­ways for stu­dent-ath­letes to suc­ceed both on the court and in their fu­ture ca­reers, giv­ing them the vis­i­bil­i­ty and sup­port they need to reach their full po­ten­tial,” said Jar­dine.

War­wick em­pha­sised the broad­er mis­sion of the com­pe­ti­tion, say­ing, “This tour­na­ment is more than just games; it is an un­ri­valled op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case the ab­solute top tal­ent in the coun­try through the Next Lev­el Per­for­mance TT plat­form, pro­vid­ing these ath­letes the spot­light they de­serve for col­le­giate path­ways.”

Ac­tion con­tin­ues on Sat­ur­day (Oct 11) and Sun­day (Oct 12) at the same venue with dou­ble-head­ers from 3 pm and 5 pm on both days.