The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Chief Sports Editor

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

IN the absence of the National High School Basketball Tournament, the second annual Mario Bowleg’s Best of the Best Senior Boys Basketball Tournament is scheduled to take place this week in Grand Bahama.

Hosted by The Friends of Basketball, The Grand Bahama Secondary Schools Athletic Assocation and the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture, the event is slated to kick off today at both the St George’s and Eight Mile Rock gymnasiums.

Some of the top teams from the prestigious Hugh Campbell Basketball Classic, including the champions Tabernacle Baptist Falcons and runners-up CI Gibson Rattlers, are expected to participate in two pools in competition through Saturday when the champions will be crowned. 

Pool A will comprise of Tabernacle Baptist, Westminster, CC Sweeting, Agape Christian and Gateway Academy. 

Pool B will feature CI Gibson, Sunland, RM Bailey, Eight Mile Rock, St George’s and Blazers Elite Academy.

“I support for the tournament, although it’s my name because I believe that we need to get back to having the high school nationals,” Bowleg said. “So the best-of-the-best is where they will pick the top six to eight teams from the Hugh Campbell Tournament and some teams that didn’t get to play in the tournament,” he said. “We should have keen competition night in and night out. It’s going to be good keen competition for the fans to see some of the talent that they didn’t get to see at Hugh Campbell Tournament if they didn’t get to come to New Providence.”

The tournament, organized by Ozzie ‘the Insider’ Simmons, will have a double elimination format up to the pool championships, which will then be single elimination. 

During the tournament, organizers will honor five former basketball players, including Craig Gray, Condell Delancy, Stan Williams, Milton Russell, Patrick Roberts from Abaco, Steven Sweeting from Bimini and Derick Cummings from New Providence. 

The tournament is being sponsored by the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture, the Grand Bahama Port Authority,  the Ministry for Grand Bahama, Caribbean Bottling Company, Island Cares Foundation, The Royal Bahamas Police Force and the Ministry of Education. 

Today’s schedule

4pm - CI Gibson vs. Eight Mile Rock.

5pm - Sunland vs RM Bailey.

6pm - Tabernacle  vs Westminster.

7pm - CC Sweeting  vs Agape Christian.

Thursday’s schedule

1pm - Opening Ceremony 

2.pm - (W) CC Sweeting/Agape vs Gateway.

3.30 - (W) - CI Gibson/Eight Mile Rock vs St George’s.

5pm - (W) - Sunland/RM Bailey vs Blazers Elite.

7pm -  (L) - Sunland/RM Bailey vs (L) - St Geoge’s/CI Gibson/Eight Milev Rock.

8pm - (L) - CC Sweeting/Agape vs (L) - Tabernacle Baptist/ Westminster.