By Dean “The Sportsman” Greenaway
SVA’s 9-12 team was second in St. Croix tournament
Sports Vision Academy 9-12 squad was second to hosts Positive Guidance in the St. Croix Labor Day Weekend Tournament, after falling, 36-23.
SVA began the tournament with a 27-21 loss to Positive Guidance, then beat St. Thomas’ Process, 20-16. They advanced to the final, after a double overtime 47-41 victory, over St. Croix’s Alliance.
“The tournament wasn’t a bad tournament at all and it’s a tournament we’re going to venture back to in the future,” Eustace “Boss” Freeman told Island Sun Sports. “There were about 12 teams in the tournament, it was a fierce competition. Our players were able to go against new competition, new faces and I think the experience that they got during the tournament would have been beneficial to them all.”
Freeman said the team has a ‘bad habit’ of starting slow and in the second game, they had quite a challenge with Positive Guidance whom they have played four times and lost. “That’s the team we have not found the answer for as yet,” he said.
Since beating Antigua and Barbuda in a tournament they hosted in August, Freeman said they went to St. Croix more confident. The aim of going to tournaments, he said, is for players to get more games.
“On an average here in the BVI, our basketball players play an average of 12 games,” Freeman noted. “And that far, far below what they need to develop in getting in-game experience. We need to be somewhere around 35-40 games in a year due to the fact that we can’t get that locally, we’re going to have to continue travelling regionally and internationally to get games for these youngsters.”
Asked about the biggest take away from the tournament, Freeman said that they ‘have a lot of work to do.’ He said that there are different philosophies in the development of youngsters, whether you want them to be good now or you want them to be good later.
“We’re on the path of making sure they have all the tools to be good later,” he emphasized. “So, we’re taking it step by step, day by day, but at the same time, realizing that there’s a lot of work to be done.”
The next tournament is scheduled for Antigua and Barbuda, December 16-19 and the Kings of the Court Tournament in Orlando, Florida. In preparation for those competitions, Freeman said they need to zone in on player strength and conditioning. “That is an area we need to improve—our players need to be better conditioned,” he noted. “They need to be stronger. They need to be faster. We’re going to partner with the Top Notch Track Club to get those areas covered over the next two months. We’re going to zone in there from a physical point of view as well as continue our strategic planning as it pertains to dealing with pressure—full court pressure—man to man full court, full court trapping, those are the areas I see we need to improve vastly on as we continue the development of these youngsters.”
To counter their opponent’s strengths, Freeman said that they have to rely on their speed. “Fortunately, we have a few very, very fast guards, so we try to speed up the game and move quicker than the team that is more physical and stronger than us,” he explained. “That is something we have been doing for many years—as far as I can remember when I played on national teams, but to do so, we have to ensure that we are properly conditioned and that’s an area we’re definitely going to fix.”
