Photo: Anderson and Amare Rhys
BELIZE CITY, Mon. July 17, 2023
The Belize Basketball Federation (BBF) is hosting the FIBA U17 Centrobasket Championship at the Belize City Civic Centre, July 26-30, for the very first time in our history.
Although the Government of Belize, Ministry of Sports is committed to assisting in the hosting of the tournament, the BBF is still struggling to finalize the payment for accommodations for the participating teams from Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico – (Group B), and Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Panama, and home team Belize – (Group A). The top 3 teams will qualify for the U18 Americas Championship next year.
Only the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico’s youth/boys’ basketball programs are listed (19 and 20, respectively) in FIBA World Rankings. They are considered this tournament’s favourites.
The Belize Basketball Federation President, Jacob Leslie is expecting that the team’s final cut to 15 players will be made this week. The coaching staff is led by Bernie Tarr, who is the head coach of the BEBL’s Belmopan Red Taigaz, with Darwin “Puppy” Leslie, recently a player coach of the BEBL Defenders, and Stephen “Muerte” Williams, who just retired from active playing after a 20-year career, as his assistants.
The current roster of players invited to ongoing workouts are Devin Moody, Thomas Garcia, Jason Orosco, Daniel Musa, Amare Rhys, Trenton Perriot, Michael Caceres (Belize City); Tevaun Dakers, Amare Jones, Rashad Neal (Belmopan); Hua Zao (Benque Viejo); Teavaughan Dawson (Orange Walk); Douglas Langford, Jr. (Dangriga/California); Jahrid Longsworth, Wilford Dawson (California); Ian Parham, Jr. (Florida); Meshach Flowers (Belmopan/Houston).
As of press time today, Meshach Flowers had not made it to Belize. His father, Paul Flowers told AMANDALA via an inbox message that: “Meshach is arriving tomorrow. He was at a Nike EYBL evaluation for the 2024 Nike Circuit. That took place today; it was a tough one-on-one evaluation that lasted 2 hours and 45 minutes.”
Meshach was born in Las Vegas, Nevada, came to Belize when he was days old, and did not return to the United States until a year or so ago.
His father further reports that, “He is now in the US for 18 months, and has been playing ball for 12 months after recovering from an injury”.
Meshach, he reports, is “currently going to Legacy, the School of Sports and Science in Houston, Texas. It is a school for gifted athletes in several sports including basketball, baseball, football and track, where they hold 3 national championships this year, and students cannot play sports if they have 1 grade in their report that is below a B.”