The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Tribune Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

Team Bahamas split the pair of games in the second window of FIBA Americas World Cup 2023 qualifiers.

The Bahamas won 86-76 over the US Virgin Islands on Saturday night and lost 90-65 to The Dominican Republic last night at the Palacio de los Deportes in the Dominican Republic.

The win over the USVI was the second win for The Bahamas in the history of World Cup qualification, following a 2019 win over the Dominican Republic.

Head coach Moses Johnson said a short-handed team gave a valiant effort facing a difficult back-to-back.

“From this window on to the next we just have to stay together. We need to build on the successes we had in this window,” he said. “We saw some good things in this window that we can build on and we know where we fell short. We are going to work on those things, we are going to make those adjustments and come back even stronger for the summer window.”

In the win over UVSI, Willis Mackey Jr led four Bahamian players in double figures with 25 points and 10 rebounds.

Mychel Thompson scored 19 with six rebounds and five assists, Danrad Knowles had 14 points and seven rebounds, Tavario Miller had 14 points and eight rebounds, while Travis Munnings had six points, nine rebounds and 11 assists. “My goal is never to just score, I’m just trying to impact the game the best way I can,” Mackey said. “I was taking what the defence gave me. A lot of times they were backing off and I wasn’t hesitating, I was just shooting.”

Johnson added: “I think we executed when we needed to. Guys really stuck together through adversity. Everybody played a role, whether guys were on the floor or were on the bench encouraging but we executed down the stretch and that’s what counted most.”

In the loss to The Dominican Republic, Munnings was the leading scorer with 16 points, nine rebounds and six assists, Miller had 14 points and six rebounds, Thompson had 10 points and seven rebounds and Knowles scored 12.

“I feel like we competed and we played really hard, but unfortunately we didn’t have enough,” Munnings said. “Some of these guys are not really used to playing back-to-backs, I can tell they were really tired but they gave it 100 percent and they competed to the best of their abilities but we are really just looking forward to getting better moving forward.”

Johnson added: “We were outrebounded, we lost the battle with points off turnovers, the rebounds led to an advantage in second-chance points. We just didn’t have enough legs. We got off to a great start, but as the game went on, legs wore down, guys were fatigued. We were undermanned and I’m so proud of these guys that they fought ‘til the end, they didn’t give up, they gave it all that they had and that’s all that we can ask for as a coaching staff.”

Johnson was assisted by John-Marc Nutt and Steve Barnes. The team manager was Elvardo Kemp, Alicia Greene was the athletic trainer and Rodney Wilson was the head of the delegation.

Team Bahamas was drawn into Group C alongside Canada, The Dominican Republic and The US Virgin Islands.

Canada leads the group at 4-0, The Dominican Republic is 3-1, The Bahamas is 1-3 and the Virgin Islands are 0-4.

In November’s first window, The Bahamas suffered a 115-73 loss to Canada in the first game of a back-to-back in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Dominick Bridgewater led the Bahamas with 13 points, David Nesbitt scored 12, Thompson scored 11 and JR Cadot finished with nine.

Canada took a decisive 113-77 win in the second game.

Nesbitt led The Bahamas with 18 points, Munnings had 10 points, eight rebounds and six assists, while Thompson and Bridgewater each finished with 12 points.

In the third and final window, Bahamas will have its 2nd matchup against The USVI on July 1, 2022, and will conclude with the 2nd matchup against The Dominican Republic on July 4, 2022.

Sixteen teams will compete in the Americas region, vying for seven spots.

The top three teams from each group will qualify for the second round of qualifiers.

In the second round, the 12 teams that qualified will be divided into two groups of six. Subsequently, the three best teams from each group, and the fourth-placed team, will qualify to the World Cup.

The FIBA World Cup 2023 is scheduled for August 25 to September 10 in multiple countries for the first time - Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines.

A total of 80 countries are left vying to be among the 32 teams at the 2023 World Cup.

The FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 will qualify teams directly for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games or through four FIBA Olympic qualifying tournaments.