The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Tribune Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

DESPITE a 5th place finish at this year’s Women’s Centrobasket Championships, national team head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin said the ultimate goal of the programme remains qualification for the 2020 Olympics.

A shorthanded Team Bahamas, with limited preparation time, finished 1-4 at the tournament with a win over Guatemala in their final game. “It challenged me, allowed me to assess some things, taught me how to be creative and put stuff in with limited time, I didn’t have a lot of time with the team. People would be surprised how much time we had together,” McPhee-McCuin said.

“Just going through the adversity makes you quit or have more resilience, for me it gave me more resilience to challenge myself and hopefully get the Bahamas to where we want to go and that’s the Olympics.”

The USVI, Puerto Rico and Mexico finished as the top three teams in the tournament and will advance to the AmeriCup 2017 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Under McPhee-McCuin’s leadership, the Bahamas finished with the gold medal at the 2015 Caribbean Basketball Confederation Championship and will automatically qualify for the 2018 Central American and Caribbean Games in Barranquilla, Columbia.

Many members of that team were unavailable for this year’s Centrobasket tournament including Shanae Armbrister, the MVP from CBC 2015, WNBA All-Star Jonquel Jones and Ashley Moss.

The Bahamas opened with a 61-56 loss to Mexico, followed by a 64-48 loss to Jamaica, and a 63-56 loss to the USVI and a 69-42 loss to Puerto Rico before the win in the tournament finale.

Leashja Grant led the Bahamas and averaged a double double with 15.6 points and 10.6 rebounds per game. Phylicia Kelly scored 9.6 points per game, Valarie Nesbitt scored 7.2 points and dished 2.8 assissts per game while Sha-Londa Neely averaged 8.4 points and 6.2 rebounds per game.

Neely also plays under McPhee-McCuin at the NCAA level as a member of the University of Jacksonville Dolphins, said her play in the tournament gives her confidence moving forward.

“This one helped me to get back to my toughness, my fighting and being strong offensively and defensively, she said, “The only difference is now I have to pull back on certain things they will call like going over the back and the hand checks because they will call those. Other than that it helped me to bring my toughness back.”

The sophomore forward said the team played inspired on the final night of competition.

“In our final game we had more energy, it wasn’t flat. We stayed together. Most people would quit and stopped playing hard but we kept going. We talked on the defensive end which was a major key because that’s what we were missing the first few games. Offensively we started to make shots, found ways to get inside and utilize the bigs.. We were down by double digits in all the previous games, but instead of that ‘not this again’ feeling we had a ‘not today’ feeling it was the last game so everyone gave what they had and that’s what helped us to pull that one out.”

When the Bahamas Basketball Federation chose to revamp its national team programme and its coaching staff, its intention was to bring greater focus and organisation in the sport for the country on the international stage.

Since McPhee-McCuin took over at the helm, the women’s programme finished fifth at the 2014 CBC and won gold at the 2015 CBC.

She noted that 2014 presented a fresh start in women’s basketball in the Bahamas and looks forward to the teams fulfilling their potential through the programme’s 20/20 vision.

“It is time to leave behind any negative experiences of the past. My plan is for us to be professional and visionary in all that we do as a team going forward,” she said, “Let’s all get to work, so that we can represent our Bahamas proudly. The 20/20 Vision indicates our ability to see sharply and clearly our vision to have the Bahamas women’s basketball team represented in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.”