The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas Basketball Federation has added another NCAA Division I coach to its national team programme as it looks to bolster its staff and player personnel for the upcoming Caribbean Basketball Championships and beyond.

Brittney Ezell, head women’s basketball coach of the East Tennessee State Buccaneers, has been named the assistant coach for the Bahamas’ women’s senior national team. She joins the staff headed by Yolett McPhee-McCuin, Grand Bahama native and head coach of the Jacksonville University Dolphins.

“I am honoured and excited to have been invited and appointed to serve as an assistant coach for the women’s national team of the Bahamas,” Ezell said in a university issued press release. “I am looking forward to working with coach McCuin and helping move the women’s basketball programme forward for the Bahamas Basketball Federation. It will be a great opportunity to learn and grow as a coach through international competition.”

Ezell recently completed her first season as the Bucs head coach and led the team to a 9-21 record. Prior to ETSU, she spent three years at the helm with the Belmont University Bruins where she compiled a 41-52 record.

Other coaching stops for Ezell include head coach positions at the University of Montevallo and Okaloosa-Walton Junior College and five years as an assistant coach and recruiting co-ordinator for the University of Alabama.

McPhee-McCuin said the women’s national team will take a new “professional and visionary” approach and the ultimate goal of the programme is to qualify for the 2016 Olympics.

That journey begins this year with a successful performance at the Caribbean Basketball Championships.

“Coach Ezell has been successful at many levels,” McPhee-McCuin said. “I am excited to have her input and look forward to working with her this summer during the Championship games.”

The BBF issued optional workouts to prospective players on April 14 and the first round of tryouts are scheduled for May 16-18 at the Kendal Isaacs Gymnasium.

June 6-9 will feature the second round of tryouts and national team strength and conditioning begins June 10. National team training camp is set for June 23 to July 7, concluding just before the team leaves for the CBC.

The CBC Championships are slated for July 8-12 at the Multi-Purpose Sports Complex in Tortola, British Virgin Islands.

The CBC Championship is a FIBA-sponsored basketball tournament in which the top-three teams will earn berths in the Centrobasket Championship.

At the Centrobasket, they will compete for spots in the FIBA Americas Championship and eventually the Olympics.

Women’s teams at the CBC Championships will include the Bahamas, Barbados, Dominican Republic and US Virgin Islands in Group A while Guyana, Jamaica, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago will make up Group B.