Trinidad and Tobago U23 b-ballers qualify for Junior Pan Am Games

THE National Basketball Federation of TT (NBFTT) announced that the national men’s Under-23 3x3 basketball team booked their ticket to the 2021 Junior Pan American Games.

The Games will take place in Cali, Colombia from November 28-30.

A NBFTT media release on Thursday, said, “The International Basketball Federation’s (FIBA) regional office in the Americas released the full list of qualified teams, with automatic qualification awarded to hosts Colombia, along with the top 11 national federations (per gender). FIBA's 3x3 Under-23 ranking as of May 31 2021 listed TT as tenth in the Americas, which secured the team's spot.”

Cali was awarded the first edition of the games, and will feature a total of 27 sports with around 3,500 athletes from 41 countries expected to compete.

“The Games will offer gold medallists automatic qualification to the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games. Organisers of the games anticipate that this will attract the best young talent from the region to participate in Cali.”

The TT women missed out on qualification as the team sits in 17th place in the rankings. The women are now fifth on the waiting list of countries who could be afforded a spot at the games through the reallocation of unused quotas for the countries that do not confirm their participation.

The women’s teams competing are Colombia, USA, Chile, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, El Salvador and Canada.

The teams participating for the men’s title are Colombia, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, USA, El Salvador, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, TT and Guatemala.

According to president of NBFTT Claire Mitchell, “This qualification is an important milestone for the TTO 3x3 teams, as 2021 marks the federation’s first real attempt at going after World Cup qualifications in different categories. The journey has only just begun as the teams now have to train heavily in preparation over the next few months for two major upcoming international tournaments.”