Basketball: Juniors crash out in CBC U16 semi-finals

The hopes were high for the Barbados team to advance to the finals of the Caribbean Basketball Confederation U16 Championships. After the 59 point beating the team received by the favorites Bahamas, many thought that the coaches had allowed the team to lose by such a margin to save energy to face Guyana in the semis. The players did start well and fought tooth and nail for every possession but the wheels came off the cart in the second 

half.

 

The game started with the boys playing well especially on the defensive end of the court. They forced many Guyanese turnovers in the first half but were unable to convert them into points. If this had achieved, Barbados would have doubled the opponents score by the end of the half. Well this just did not happen and instead they found themselves down 1.

 

Now the third quarter was confusing to many. After showing so much fight in the first half, how could the Bajan lads only muster 2 points in the third quarter? The blunt answer would be that they went away from what was working and started to be out-hustled by the Guyana team.

 

Turnovers started to plague the guys and the forwards were being muscled out of position giving up offensive rebounds to the opposition while not being able to gather any of their own on the other end. It was a poor showing to say the least and the disappointing third ended with Guyana scoring 19 and Barbados 2.

 

Unfortunately the situation continued in the fourth and Barbados could not seem to score the basketball. Of the 16 three-pointers launched in the game, they hit a total of 0 and to emphasize the struggle, half the team were unable to get onto the score sheet and finished with 0 for the game.

 

By the end of the game Barabados had been outrebounded 73-35 and outscored down low 52-26 in the paint. What also propelled the Guyana team was 40 points of the bench which meant that even when the starters were resting the point continued to flow. The game finished 77-37, with Barbados having the poorest showing of the tournament having been outscored 47-8 in the second half of the game.

 

The team looked deflated as the game drew to a close and many would wonder what the cause of the meltdown was. Coach Zahir Motara could be seen trying different player rotations on the court and Assistant Dean Squires talked to the players who were on the bench trying to encourage them to keep pushing. 

 

In the end despite the loss, the team had a good tournament and made the final four making Barbados proud. Losses will occur in basketball but the main focus afterwards must be to work on the mistakes and strengthen the good points for future tournaments to come.