The Tribune

The Bahamas men’s national basketball team, with coach John Lucas III leading the charge, suffered a 76-62 loss to Cuba in the first of two games in the second window of the FIBA AmeriCup Qualifying Tournament this weekend.

Tavario Miller scored 17 points and eight rebounds and Rashad Davis also came up with 17 points, four rebounds and two steals to lead The Bahamas, but Lucas III said the team just simply didn’t play up to par in their first game on Friday night.

No other player was in double digits with Godfrey Rolle II being their next best scorer with eight points. All of the other six players  scored at least a point but just two accounted for 34 of their 62 total points.

“Our performance was poor tonight. I’m not going to lie. The performance was poor,” said Lucas III, who is filling in for men’s coach Chris DeMarco, who was unable to attend the games because he’s serving as an assistant coach for the Golden State Warriors in the NBA. 

“We let them punch us in our mouth and we didn’t punch back. We got out-rebounded and we gave them too many second chance shots, gave up too many offensive rebounds, we didn’t protect the ball, we didn’t share the ball. We were not touching the paint to create other shots.”

Lucas III, assisted by Mychel Thompson and Moses Johnson, admitted that the team got great looks, but they didn’t make their shots, going 5-for-18 from behind the three-point line, 17-for-32 from their two-point shots and 13-for-19 from the free throw line.

The Bahamas scored the first basket of the game, but Cuba quickly tied it and took the lead and never relinquished. 

Cuba outscored their opponents in each of the four quarters, gradually building a lead that allowed them to close the game with a comfortable double-digit advantage.

Yoanki Mensia, who plays in Spain’s ACB league for Casademont Zaragoza, also led Cuba with 17 points, eight rebounds, two assists and two steals. 

The Bahamas, currently 1-2, will now travel to Washington DC  to take on the United States of America. The USA and Cuba are both 2-1 sitting atop Group D after they split their head-to-head matchups during Window 1. 

Cuba will host Puerto Rico, the other team in the group, who is also 1-2. 

Puerto Rico suffered a 108-66 blowout loss to the USA on Friday.