Belize National Basketball team prepares for Centrobasket Tournament
Milt Palacio
LoveFM – Love FM and Channel five have teamed up to provide coverage of the 2010 Centrobasket Championship in the Dominican Republic. The Belize National Team will be going up against the best of the best from the Central American and Caribbean Region. Thanks to this partnership listeners and viewers Love FM, Love Television and Channel Five won’t miss a beat. Love News spoke to Love FM’s Terry Gordon and William Neal from Channel five.
Terry Gordon; Marketing Manager, RSV Media Centre
“Love Fm and Love Television along with Channel 5 Great Belize Productions, their bid for the broadcasting rights was accepted. The same thing that you will be seeing on Channel 5 is the same thing you’ll be seeing on Love Television and airing on Love FM, so we will have a crew made up of our technician William Usher, Armin Arana, Brads Neal who will be doing analytical commentaries and yours truly who will be on the sidelines doing interviews.”
William Neal; Host, Open Your Eyes
“At the end of the day what we want is good coverage of our teams while they are aboard and the partnership between Love Fm and Channel 5 is just another example to show that the National good is created on any kind of individual. At the end of the day we want to make sure that people understand the energies that is being extended by our National Team and to be up to date with what is happening in Santo Domingo instead of waiting a week or days later to find out exactly what the results are.”
The National team, poised to play Venezula tonight and tomorrow night at the Civic Centre, say they have no trouble with chemistry as some of the same guys from last year’s CACABA Championship have been reassembled.
Richard Troyer; National Basketball Team
“From a conditioning stand point I think we are all in better shape as far as conditioning is concerned. As far as like the cohesiveness I think we are just as good as we were last year or better I think defensive we’ll be a better team definitely and offensively I don’t think that will be a problem. The core group is the same we are missing like two guards from last year but we know what we are up against and there is some really good players some really good teams. Its not Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, these are a lot higher level teams and players so we are not taking it for granted and I think the coaching staff will do a good job preparing us for each game individually. And our first test is Trinidad and Tobago and it will show us where we are at and hopefully we can get a win there and move on to the next game.”
The Venezuelan team came in this morning and will be playing the Belize National team as a part of their preparation for the South American Qualifying Tournament. According to Brads Neal these two games against the Venezuela National Team will let the team know just how prepared they are.
Brads Neal; Vice President, Belize Basketball Federation
“This is a huge match for both countries; both countries need a test to see where they are at in this huge competition. It’s just going to be a great opportunity for our players, our coaching staff and our fans to see Team Belize perform at its highest level. The coaching staff has done a fabulous job in getting the guys together. Milton and a couple players, Kenton Paulino came in a couple days ago but these are world season players and they understand the system. In the last few days of practice it has been great, the core players of last year Milton Palacio, Marlon Garnett, Alex Carcamo, Kennan Jordon, Charlie burgess, Keith Acosta, Richard Troyer, those players are still on the team and we have Sonny Watson with us helping us with size this year. We have four locally grown home players in the likes of Mr. Itza, Darwin ’puppy’ Leslie, Keith Acosta and Richard Troyer.”
The games at the Civic Centre are10 dollars general admission, 15 dollars reserved and five dollars for children 12 under.
