Coach begins workouts for CARICOM basketball
The CARICOM basketball championships are less than three weeks away but by Belizean standards that’s plenty of time to get our national team organized and ready to defend its title. Today the Basketball Association held a press conference to introduce the team’s coaches and update the public on how preparations are going. News Five’s James Adderly was in attendance and was told by head coach Ron Abegglen that despite his years of experience in the United States and Europe, coaching any new team always presents challenges.
Ron Abegglen, Head Coach, Belize National Team
“I always get butterflies when I go onto the floor the first time for a new experience. I was excited about the energy level that all the players had for the first morning. They were all on time, they were ready to go and it was very exciting to get started.”
James Adderly
“I wanted to ask you this question earlier, but now that we are in a one on one the time constraint, how much of a factor would it be on your ability to lead us?”
Ron Abegglen
“Well I like the challenge of that and that’s a big part of coaching, adjusting, adjusting and adjusting all the time to the challenge. It will take me about 3 days to learn their names and 3 or 4 days to learn what they can or can’t do and then we will sit down with the coach Belnap and we’ll say okay, we can do this, we can’t do that and hopefully we will make some very good decisions because we won’t have the ability to say 3 weeks from now, oops! that doesn’t work let’s go try something else. It’s a one shot thing and we’ve got to make some good decisions because by the tournament time, it’ll be too late to make any changes.”
James Adderly
“This is your second stint with the National Basketball Team of Belize. Going into Barbados, do you think that we have the ingredients to be able to compete properly in this particular tournament?”
Darwin Carter, National Team Member
“I think that we have the players that it will take to win, it is just a matter of getting the job done and everyone sticking together and communicating and chemistry and mainly just playing together.”
James Adderly
“So what’s your perspective under new coach Ron Abegglen?”
Olin Simpliss, National Team Member
“He’s seems laid back you know, he’ll give a the ability to free lance a little bit yet play under a system because he knows that we are small and we’re going to have to utilize our quickness as opposed to we had 1-2 dimensions last summer, it was let’s go to Milton, let’s go. Which was good, we won, I was happy we won it, but this time you’ll see a lot more players stepping up, Alex, Darwin, myself, Clins got better, you know, Leon coming in, he didn’t have a good summer I heard last year, but I know his from the States, he’s a good ball player. I’m not too worried about too much, of anything. Shab will step on it too, because this is his old coach, I’m sure there gonna have play set for him, we didn’t really utilize him as much as we should have, I felt because he is the talent, but you know.”
James Adderly
“Obviously, we’ll be short of help at the point, should the coach ask you to become the point guard are you capable?”
Olin Simpliss
“I’m more comfortable playing the point.”
James Adderly
“Well always had you categorised as a shooting guard…”
Olin Simpliss
“Yeah, that’s the funny thing, I prefer having the ball in my hand and creating it, but you know I shoot the ball. I’ve always played point growing up, high school, I’ve played 1, 2 and 3 you know it’s just versatility, but I prefer playing the point. But if he needs me to play the point, I’ll play the point. If he needs me to play the 2, I’ll play the 2. If he needs me to play the big men, I’ll play the big men. I got the weight to bump some players down there.”
Glenn Tillett told News Five that the budget for the effort was around a hundred thousand dollars. While the total had not yet been raised a major portion was in hand from the government and private sector. The last CARICOM championship was held in 1998 in Belize. This year’s competition, featuring 12 teams, will be held in Barbados from June 29th through July 8th. Live television coverage via satellite will begin from July 2nd right here on Channel Five.
