By RENALDO DORSETT
Tribune Sports Reporter
rdorsett@tribunemedia.net
THE New Providence Basketball Association will be back in action this weekend to tip off its 2019-20 season.
Opening night is Saturday, October 26, at the AF Adderley Gymnasium with games at both the Division I and Division II levels.
Division I will feature the defending champions Commonwealth Bank Giants opening their quest for a three-peat against the Discount Distributor Rockets.
Division II will feature a championship rematch between the Breezes High Flyers and Your Essential Store Giants.
In last season’s finale, The Commonwealth Bank Giants repeated as Division I champions and went on to claim the Bahamas Basketball Federation National Championship.
The Giants defeated the PJ Stingers in five games, highlighted by an 87-82 win to clinch the title.
The Breezes High Flyers and YES Giants went the distance before Breezes emerged with a 91-78 win in the deciding game.
The Giants opened the series with a 98-95 win in game one before the High Flyers tied the series 108-101 in game two and took a 2-1 advantage with an 89-77 win in game three.
The Giants evened the series with an 89-86 game four win.
The High Flyers regained the series lead 111-102 in game five before the Giants forced game seven with the most decisive win of the series 92-65.
This year will be the first in the administration of new NPBA President James Price, who won the election back in April.
Price’s executive board will comprise of all members of his ‘Team Next Level’ that includes first vice president Kevin ‘KJ’ Johnson, second vice president Donnie Culmer, third vice president Kevin ‘Island’ McPhee, fourth vice president Ryan ‘Rat’ Turnquest, secretary Rhondia Johnson, treasurer Sophia Hunter, assistant treasurer Perry Thompson, commissioner Anthony ‘Cops’ Rolle, assistant commissioner Terrance ‘Red Eye’ McSweeney and public relations officer Moses Johnson.
“We have to move forward and make the NPBA a more friendly place to be. We had problems between the referees and players and coaches. That’s the first thing on the agenda.
“We have to fix that and get a development programme back in place for the mini and supermini basketball.. We have some other things on our agenda, but we have to get the development programme up and running first,” Price said at the time of his election.
“We have some goals in place. Each one of them will take time. We have goals for the fans. We are trying to put season tickets in place so we can make it inexpensive for them to come out.
“We need the fans, we need the referees and we need the players in order for us to have a successful league. So we will be looking at all of them as we try to take the sport back to where it was in the past.”
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