Bowman encouraged by enthusiasm of players at NSBF preseason games

… YBG aiming to introduce “Girls Play” this summer

By Timothy Jaikarran

The National School Basketball Festival pre- season games have been off with a bang since the action commenced last weekend. This weekend’s games are scheduled to be held on June 18th, 19th, and 26th in Georgetown, and on June 24th in Berbice, and June 25th in Linden. This is prior to the start of the NSBF festival on July 1st, 2022.
Youth Basketball Guyana Co-Founder Chris Bowman has stated that there is great enthusiasm among the players, as basketball has finally returned after a two-year hiatus that was due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bowman divulged that while the males’ games are important, females play an integral part as well, hence YBG will be introducing “Girls Play” this summer.
In an interview with this publication, he was asked how it feels to have the pre-season games up and running, and he responded as follows: “Well, it is a quite limited pre-season, given the short time we have before the National School Basketball Festival. We’ll have to wait for the NSBF Championship to make any real assessment about the talent, since we would not see the out-of-town players until then.
“What I can say is there is a great deal of enthusiasm among the players and schools because of the two-year-plus hiatus due to COVID.”
In the current preseason games, last weekend saw one female game being played as compared to the other games, which were mostly males.
Bowman explained that Youth Basketball Guyana have plans on their agenda to push more female games, as women’s participation and opportunities continue to be key priorities for YBG.
He noted that ever since year three, YBG had introduced a women’s division in the festival, and they have had a women’s championship every year since.
“This year we’ll have about ten women’s teams competing, which is a decent number given how hard it is to get girls involved in sports. The problem that we have had is: after school basketball, there is no structure for girls. This summer, we are looking to introduce a new program, called “Girls Play”, and then next year hopefully we could have both men and women playing in the Tertiary Basketball League,” Bowman has posited.

The first National School Basketball Festival was played from June 26-30, 2006, and involved 18 schools in a single elimination tournament. From its inception, the NSBF has been a partnership between Youth Basketball Guyana and stakeholders, to develop a structured National School Basketball Championship. Over the last 12 years, the programme has grown significantly, and now includes regional (ZONE) tournaments in order to qualify for the National Championship. National titles are contested in the categories of under-14, -16, -18 (change from 19) and Girls Developmental.