Barbados Amateur Basketball Association president Francis Williams has praised the senior men’s team after its unbeaten run secured qualification to the second round of the FIBA AmeriCup 2029 qualifiers.
While celebrating the team’s achievement, Williams has called on critics of the association to move away from what he described as “baseless criticism” and instead urged all stakeholders to unite behind efforts to grow basketball in Barbados.
The next round of qualifiers is scheduled for November, with Williams describing the opening-round success as a significant milestone for the national programme.
He said Barbados is expected to face Antigua and Barbuda, Nicaragua and Jamaica in the next phase of the competition.
“It’s a huge achievement from a number of perspectives. To get back to the regional level and finish as head of the group is significant. It justifies all of the effort that we put in during the last two to three years, when we travelled to tournaments in Chile and Mexico.
“It really bore fruit in terms of preparing the team and competing at that level. I don’t want to say we were a class above the rest in Guyana but our overall quality was very evident,” Williams said.
He is of the view the team’s success would not have been possible without talent and financial resources and he’s grateful the team was blessed with both over the past few years.
William also revealed the team members will remain active between now and the November window of qualification.
“Yeah of course once the team returns and the domestic playoffs are completed, we’re going to let the guys enjoy the summer, and then we will just put the necessary plans in place to get them ready for the November window.”
Moving forward, Williams cautioned that he’s not prepared to accommodate what he describes as the negativity that has prevailed around the sport in recent times.
“We have seen the creation of negativity from some persons who either don’t understand, they’ve never run an association, or don’t understand the issues that you have to go through in sport in Barbados in general.
“When you have a result like this, the main hope is that it can shut those people up for a little bit, because it really makes it difficult sometimes for an executive of volunteers to do what we do and achieve what we have,” claimed a passionate Williams.
“I’d like some of these same people to come and help to do some of the heavy lifting that is required, instead of making the load heavier to carry. We will get it wrong sometimes, but never for a lack of trying to get it right,” he maintained.
Playing St Vincent and the Grenadines in their last game at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall in Guyana on Sunday, Barbados sealed a 96-84 win, to book the lone qualification spot from the group.
A tense opening quarter saw Barbados edge into a 24-23 lead, while another close session saw St Vincent and the Grenadines grinding to a 45-44 lead at half time.
Barbados closed games strongly throughout the qualifiers and this was the case once again, as they pulled ahead 64-57 at the end of the third quarter, before maintaining their composure to seal the win.
Boston University student Kyrone Alexander starred for Barbados with 32 points.
Earlier in the qualifiers the Bajans began their campaign with a 89-54 demolition of Cayman Islands, before recovering from a slow start in game two, to defeat Haiti 91-68. This was then followed by another impressive win, as the Bajans eased past Grenada 99-77.
(KH)
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