Cayman Islands basketball found little solace in El Salvador.
The national Under-15 boys basketball team went 0-5 at the CentroBasket Championships in San Salvador, finishing eighth out of eight countries.
Cayman had a horrible start, losing its first three matches by embarrassing margins to Mexico (127-27), El Salvador (108-18) and the Bahamas (105-26) in group play. The boys then lost to Costa Rica 73-21 and Barbados 64-49.
The top four teams, namely the Mexicans, Puerto Rico, Guatemala and the Bahamians, earned berths to the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) America Championships, which leads up to the FIBA World Championships.
Cayman were represented by 12 young men in Daniel Britton, Michael Brooks, Michael Dawes, Juawon Ebanks, Joshua Ebanks-Brown, Franz Manderson Jr, Jahmoll Miller, Javon Seymour, Norman Solomon, vice-captain Arin Taylor, Alexander Thompson and captain Jamel Winton. Ebanks and Taylor, both age 14, were the top performers.
Ebanks led the team in scoring, averaging 7.8 points per game, while ranking fifth in the tournament in three-point shooting percentage at 33 per cent. Taylor was the team’s second-best scorer with 5.0ppg and the top free throw shooter with a 87.5 per cent free throw percentage.
Both were helped in large part by Daniel Britton, 15, who ranked in the top ten in blocking (fourth with 1.4 blocks per match) and rebounding (seventh with nine rebounds per contest) for the tournament.
Guiding the boys were head coach Duran ‘Trinni’ Whittaker, assistant coach Erwin ‘Bong’ Blancaflor and team manager Angela O’Garro. The squad, who were accompanied by head local referee Gregory Hamilton, competed until last Friday and returned home on Monday, 3 September.
Expectations for the Cayman team were measured. The side only qualified for CentroBasket through their participation in the Caribbean Basketball Confederation U15 Youth Championships. A mere three countries were able to participate in that tournament, giving Cayman an automatic berth.
Related Videos
I would like to congratulate this young team. They have come this far through hard work and dedication, and they have only been together as a team for a short period of time.
Young men, don’t let dampen your spirits you, just continue to work hard and I’m sure you all will go far!