Jamaica’s basketball TD heartened by enthusiastic restart
Tivoli Wizards, Southern Region top first local competitions since COVID-19
Published:Wednesday | December 29, 2021 | 12:08 AMHubert Lawrence/Gleaner Writer
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR of Jamaica’s basketball programme, Alf Remikie, is heartened by the enthusiasm of the players and team in the country’s first local tournament, the Jamaica Basketball Association 3x3 Development Series, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s a real long way back but there are positives because they showed signs of interest, the whole fraternity showed signs of interest, a lot of interest for them coming back,” analysed Remikie.
Tivoli Wizards and the Southern Region finished on top of the tournament that marked the sport’s return to local courts after its COVID-19-enforced absence.
The Wizards squeezed past the Urban Knights 13-12 and Southern outlasted the North Region to capture the women’s crown on December 22 at the National Stadium courts.
Tivoli also scored an 11-9 margin in the semis over the St Georges Slayers. In the other semi-final, the Knights out-dipped the Portmore Flames 10-9 in the 10-team men’s section. Four regional outfits bounced in the women’s section with Southern beating Central 10-7 and Northern getting the better of Central 8-3 before the final won by Southern Region.
The event was played without spectators and players had to embrace a range of COVID protocols, including temperature checks, with COVID marshals on patrol to ensure compliance.
Remikie believes Jamaica’s recent overseas results have stoked interest in the game.
In November, Jamaica achieved a top-eight finish at the Americup 3x3 basketball tournament in Miami, Florida, on the back of victories over Aruba, Haiti and Chile. The men eventually bowed out in the quarter-final stage.
Earlier this month, the boys in black-green-and-gold played their way to sixth place in the Centro Under-17 tournament in Mexico.
“I think it has also to do with our feature internationally, how we handled ourselves internationally over the past couple of months with our 3x3 competition. We were ousted by the United States and that’s a big deal, and then our under-17s went and did very well in the last Centro basketball. So the interest is there, and that is the main thing,” said Remikie.
Even though the long break translated into a lack of physical conditioning on the court, Remikie viewed the tournament as a positive for the sport. “We moved the game a bit forward, restarted the whole thing,” he assessed.
He had kind words for the players who contested the four-day tournament, with less-than-sparkling displays.
“They did pretty well, but as I said before, they just couldn’t manage. Mentally, they wanted to, but their bodies just couldn’t carry them. It was fun,” Remikie said.
Encouraged by the development series, he added, “We just want to continue this flow in terms of redeveloping the sport. Hopefully, we don’t have to wait too long to start back the youngsters. That’s the key.”