'D1' starts today with double-header

Western Bureau:

The 2011-12 Western Basketball Association (WBA) Division One League, which was initially slated to start last weekend but was postponed, will start this afternoon with a big double-header at the Montego Bay Cricket Club Courts, starting at 5 p.m.

The games down for contention are: Bay City Lions against Montego Bay Boys Club Warriors at 5:30 p.m., followed by Montego Bay Cricket Club Knights against Granville Wolfpack at 6:30 p.m. In a lone game on Sunday, Lucea Flames will square off with Spartans at the Watson Taylor Park in Lucea, Hanover, at 4 p.m.

"Everything is now in place, we are ready to go," said Deon Williams, the WBA vice-president in charge of leagues and operations. "Unfortunately, we have had to change the competition's format as a result of the withdrawal of two teams so the season will be a little bit shorter than we had hoped."

As a consequence of the change to the competition's format, the two-zone format has been scrapped and the seven remaining teams will now play a revised round-robin format from which the top-four teams will advance to the semi-finals.

"The semi-finals will be a two-way affair with the winner to be decided on aggregate," said Williams. "The finals will be played in a best-of-three format."

As was previously announced, the WBA will still be going ahead with its plan to take the game into various communities as a means of growing the sport and generating wider spectator support.

"Among the venues we will be using are the Watson Taylor Park in Lucea, Hanover, the Elliston Wakeland Youth Centre in Falmouth, Trelawny; the Negril Beach Park, in Hanover and the Montego Bay Boys' Club and the Montego Bay Cricket Club Courts in St James," said Williams.

Competing teams

The competing teams are Montego Bay Boys' Club Warriors, Montego Bay Cricket Club Knights, Bay City Lions and Granville Wolfpack of St James, Tornado of Trelawny; and Hopewell Vipers and March Town Spartans of Hanover.

The Division One League, alongside the National Basketball League (NBL) men's Championship, the WBA women's league and the KFC schoolboys' Under-19 and Under-16 competitions make up the WBA calendar.