The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

THE top basketball teams in the country will meet this weekend to decide the overall title of national champions.

BTC will be the title sponsor as the Bahamas Basketball Federation hosts its 2016 National Round Robin Championships at the DW Davis Gymnasium in New Providence April 28-30.

Three islands - New Providence, Grand Bahama and Eleuthera - will be represented in the men’s division I. In division II, New Providence, Andros, Bimini, San Salvador, and Grand Bahama will vie for the title.

Division I teams include the Mail Boat Cybots, Grand Bahama Shipyard Cruisers and Harbour Island Panthers while division II teams include the South Andros Police Enforcers, Bimini Marlins, NP Athletico Bahamas, San Salvador and GB Gold Rock Gym Rats

This year’s round robin will produce new national champions after new groups of teams have advanced to the field.

In 2015, the B and B Galaxy Pumpers clinched the men’s  division I crown with a 85-84 win over New Providence’s PJ Stingers and the Coca Cola Saints secured the division II title with a 72-51 rout over the Bimini Marlins.

This year’s champions out of New Providence, the Cybots, entered the season with a single-minded goal, according to head coach Wayde Watson.

“From the beginning of the season, our goal was not just to win the New Providence Basketball Association championship, but we want to win the nationals. We know we had to get through the New Providence championship to get there,” he said, “We really want to win that title. We can’t let Freeport win the nationals again this year.”

 The Cybots last won the tournament in 2013, followed by consecutive wins from teams out of Grand Bahama, the Cruisers in 2014 and the Pumpers last year.

 The BBF traditionally hosts the Round Robin in honour of Bernard “Bunny’ Levarity.

Levarity, who was elected to the Grand Bahama Sports Hall of Fame posthumously in 2013, was an icon on the Grand Bahamian basketball scene as a player, administrator and official.