Category Latest news

Bancha Captures Title

Most of Cayman’s top female basketball players came out to show their stuff and take part in what was for most of them, their first ever 3 on 3 competition locally.

They were pleasantly surprised at the new format of the FIBA three on three competition. The continuous, fast paced style of play, the intensity, and the level of competitiveness certainly made it an enjoyable experience with the players yearning for more. Throughout the intense battle the team called Bancha emerged victorious. Defeating the rival opponents Truly Infinity (Vicky Gray, Shantel Wilks and Lorrie Brown) by a score of 13 to 11.

The championship team Is comprised of Hannah Parchment’, Chloe Powery – Doxey and Guiesha Smith. The tournament is sponsored by the Cayman Islands Classic which would also be donating tickets to the games to the champs of each tournament.

All eyes are now set on the next competition – the Hoop It Up 3 on 3 Tournament which takes place on October 15th at the ARC once again!
interested persons should visit the CIBA website at CaymanBasketball.com to register their team Before the deadline of October 14.

How to Register Your 3 on 3 Team

Step 1 – Click on the Register Here Button to go directly to the FIBA Registration Page

Step 2 – Click on the Blue “Register Team” Button

Step 3 – Scroll Down the page and Click on the “Register Team” Button next to the category you are entering. Then follow the instructions to complete your registration.

Ebanks off to Baton Rouge!

18 year old Arleny Ebanks is off to Baton Rouge Community College in Louisiana this summer.

The 6’3 center played just her first year in the National Women’s Basketball league when she joined the league’s runners up “Islanders” this season.

Ebanks began learning the game of Basketball recently in 2019. It was National Youth and Assistant Women’s Coach Cory McGee who saw huge potential and took the stellar rebounder under his wing and prepared her for battle in a little over a year.

Ebanks joined the Breakfast Club morning program where she improved her skill and knowledge of the game preparing her for the next 4 years of tertiary education. She’s also looking forward to giving back to the Cayman Islands National programs.

All the best Arleny!!!!🏀🤗

Warriors Claim Under 16 Title!

Warriors are the new 2021 PWC National U16 Boys championships. 🏆🏀❤💪🏽👍🏼

From the jump, the Ice Tray and Warriors matchup was a close encounter with several lead changes. Nathaniel Anderson put on a show for the Ice Tray fans but in the end the Warriors would emerge victorious.

After Warriors star player Xzavier Miller was fouled out with two minutes left in the 4th quarter one would think the game would be over but the Warriors team stepped up and showed why practice makes perfect and the team with the least mistakes win.

For Warriors: Enarre Smith led the charge with 15 points, But it would be Xzavier Miller’s 15 rebounds and 12 points that kept the team afloat; Umar Gordon and Jamar Ellis both added points each.

For Ice Tray: Nathaniel Anderson too scored with 23 points and Andrew Stone followed with 12 points and 14 rebounds.

Final score: Warriors 54 Ice Tray 51

Player of the Week

🏀PLAYER OF THE WEEK🏀

Davion Cotterell was one assist shy of a triple double and 3 rebounds short of making a quadruple double when he led the IRG Astros with 48 points, 11 rebounds, 9 assists, 7 steals, 1 block.

In Monday’s game against Celltronics, Cotterell scored a career high of 50 points.

Deloitte Player of the Week – Boys

Marcus Fletcher earns player of the week rights for the Deloitte Under 19 Boys Basketball League.  Fletcher (of team Chino Hills) was the only player with a double digit scoring average, finishing with 30 points in his two games. Fletcher also was 2nd in Assists, 3rd in steals, 1st in 3 pointers made.  

Fletcher also shot 100% from 3 point range and 44% from within the ARC. 

Can Fletcher lead his team to the top of the standings this week?  Or will the formidable Sol Blazers remain undefeated?  Action continues this Sunday at 4:00 PM for the Boys. 

Deloitte Player Of the Week

Amaya Linwood is the the player of the week for her performance in 1st round action of the Deloitte Under 19 Girls Basketball League.

The league takes on a fast and furious format this year, as game time is slightly shortened but each team plays two games per day.  After 4 games of non stop action, Linwood emerged the most outstanding this week as she filled the stat sheets:

She averaged 12.5 points, 4 assists, 8.5 rebounds, 3.5 steals and 1 block per game. Did we mention that she is one of the youngest players in the league (14)?

Linwood also finished with the highest free throw percentage, 2nd in scoring, 1st in rebounds, 1st in assists, 3rd in steals, 1st in blocks.  Her team is the “Women of Valor Fearless”.

 Action continues this Sunday at 3 pm for the girls the John Gray High School Gymnasium.  

Basketball Standout O’Garro Commits to Oklahoma

By: Kevin Morales.

Caymanian Joshua O’Garro is making history.

O’Garro this week verbally committed to play basketball at the University of Oklahoma, which would make him the first Caymanian to play the sport at the NCAA Division I level.

“It’s a great day,” Cayman Islands basketball technical director Voot O’Garro told the Cayman Compass on Friday.

Joshua O’Garro this year wrapped up his junior season at Santa Clarita High School, in California. He caught the attention of several Division I men’s basketball programmes while moving up recruiting site rankings. He’s considered a three-star recruit by Rivals.com – one of the United States’ most recognised recruiting news services – which rates players on a five-star system. He was ranked a four-star recruit by 247Sports.com.

“It is a great program,” O’Garro told Rivals.com’s Corey Evans of OU. “They make great players and that’s what I want to be and I feel that Coach (Lon) Kruger and the staff are all invested in me as a person on and off the court. They believe in me and my abilities and I won’t let their belief go to waste.”

Evans tweeted a graphic illustration on Thursday showing O’Garro in a Sooners jersey. Oklahoma’s official men’s basketball Twitter account retweeted it.

O’Garro had planned on playing one more year of high school basketball. He reclassified to the class of 2020, however, because he met college academic requirements between his time at Santa Clarita and another prep school he previously attended, according to Voot O’Garro.

NCAA Division I is the top level of college sports in the US. The Sooners play in the Big 12 Conference, which is one of the most prestigious conferences in the US in terms of athletics success.

“The Cayman Islands native is one of the more gifted athletes we’ve had at BTI in 23 years,” tweeted BTI, O’Garro’s club team.

The Sooners have four players that currently play in the National Basketball Association, including the Detroit Pistons four-time All-Star Blake Griffin, Atlanta Hawks All-Star point guard Trey Young and Sacramento Kings guard Buddy Hield, who won the 3-point shootout competition at the 2020 NBA All-Star Weekend.

Oklahoma had made the NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship tournament in five of the last six years before the 2020 tournament was called off due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Sooners had put together a 19-12 record before the 2020 season was cancelled.

Joshua O’Garro has given a verbal commitment but has not yet signed his National Letter of Intent to attend the school, which would make the announcement official. He plans to redshirt next year, Voot O’Garro said. If a player is ‘redshirted’ it means the athlete is enrolled at the school and remains a member of the team but will not play that season. The player therefore does not begin his or her four years of eligibility to play until the following academic year.

As for the young athlete heading to Oklahoma, “This is going to take Cayman Islands basketball to the next level,” Caymanian basketball coach Corey McGee said.

Career Spotlight – Cory Thompson

He was arguably the best rebounder the Cayman Islands has ever seen, one of the country’s top defenders and possibly one of the greatest shot blockers in Cayman’s history.

Cayman Basketball built its foundation around this 6’3 versatile player who represented the three island nation at the very first NatWest Island Games and came away with a silver medal.

Got your attention? Good!

Now let’s read about 41 year old Cory Thompson who has paved the way for several young Cayman basketball players to take their talents overseas.

Ireland:

Cory Thompson signed his first professional contract in the Super league with a team called Neptune from Cork. While staying in Ireland for a few months which happened to be the same time as pre-season tryouts, Thompson was invited to train with the team for a few months and played the first few games with the them before returning to study at Hillsbourough County in Tampa, Florida.

Tampa:

In Tampa, this power forward and center played in a few local leagues and won 3 championships in which he was selected to play in the NBA Hoop It Up 3on3 challenge where he won the Men’s 1st Division B for the entire tournament.

United Kingdom:

In 1999 Thompson and his Cayman teammate Erdmon McCoy were offered contracts for 2 different teams. They both travelled to Cardiff to tryout with the Clippers and Coventry Tigers which they both got offered contracts.

According to Thompson, both he and McCoy returned home to Cayman to decide on which contract to take but unfortunately McCoy had broken his instep in a pre-season game where they both competed before heading back home….This prevented McCoy’s chance at the pro leagues. Thompson then however, decided not to return as well but to continue his studies in Florida.

After finishing College, Thompson returned to the UK and signed with the Southampton Trial Blazers in the 4th national league. His very first professional team. That season, Thompson and the Blazers went 15-0 to win the Southern Division.

A few seasons after, Thompson went onto play for Chichester Thunder where he also won the 4th Southern Division that year. Thompson was the 2nd top scorer on the team averaging a double in every game with 20+ points.

France:

Later on Thompson and most of his teammates from the Chichester squad joined the 1st division Worthing Thunder where they placed 2nd in the national division that year.

Thompson was also selected 3 years in a row to play in the Quartier Quest, a tournament held in Northern France which is the home town of the NBA’s Nicolas Batum of the Charlotte Hornets.

Thompson said, “he was fortunate to meet and play alongside Batum once as the Hornets did not make the NBA playoffs that year so Batum returned to France for competition.”

Members of the team consisted of top BBL players, England and Nigerian national team players.

However, Thompson said, “what was most important for me during that time playing and travelling around the UK was that I found time to obtain my Bacholer and Masters degrees in Communication Design along with my level 1 and 2 City and Guilds certificate in Web design.” He said he also became a level 1 coach and began coaching kids in a few camps in the UK and 1 in Norway.”

Finland:

When Thompson migrated to Finland he found a new passion in coaching but he also played in the men 2nd division. The first year he was the assistant coach for the U16 Boys 1st division. Thompson said the head coach allowed him to coach and change up his system because he wanted to mentor him to become the head coach for Masu Basket….in which he did.

This same year Masu won the U16 1st division where Thompson also coached the team in an invitational tournament held in Finland where they won a gold medal with the team also setting a tournament record by remaining undefeated throughout the season.

That year, Thompson played and coached for the same basketball club. He played 3 seasons and coached for 4 seasons.

Clubs in Finland are a big deal with teams starting as young as U10 straight to men’s professional level league with the biggest club in Finland having over 1500 players.

Officiating:

Thompson also dabbled in Officiating throughout his extended career. He stepped away from coaching for a while to become a professional referee. Thompson currently holds a level 1 certificate which allows him to referee in the Women’s 1st division which is televised; Men 2nd division and all national and U19 league games.

Thompson said, “he has enjoyed refereeing so far because it has allowed him to travel all over Europe and officiate various tournaments in places such as Sweden, Hungry, Spain and Norway.

After Thompson stopped playing in the men’s 2nd division he then transferred to another club NMKY to play in a higher league in the Men’s 35 Senior National league where he and his team finished 5th the very first season.

Next season, Thompson will be playing in the Senior league once again and also tournaments around Finland. The winners of the Senior national league will go on to represent Finland in the FIMBA world championship.

Local Teams:

Thompson has shared his talents with several local teams in the Men’s National league throughout the years. Most notably

The Island Pharmacy Huskies where he has won a championship with the Huskies being the first team in Cayman to go through the entire season undefeated. Thompson also represented local teams CNB; Coconut Car Rental (championship); Harlem Bulls; Police (championship)
DHL Wolverines (championship) and Shaolin Warriors.

Islands Games:

The 6’3 center also represented the Cayman Islands at 4 NatWest Island Games in Gotland, Sweeden where Cayman won Silver; Guernsey where Cayman won Silver once again; Aland and Isle of Wight.

Caricom/CBC Games:

Thompson also led the Cayman Islands to 5th place out of 13 Caribbean countries in the 1999 Junior Caricom Basketball tournament held in Jamaica.

RBMF:

Thompson also founded the Rodney Bodden Memorial Foundation in 2006 in which he organizes a weekend of fun basketball competition in the Cayman Islands in honour of his former National teammate who passed away in 1998. It started as a one day 3 on 3 tournament and evolved into a 3 day weekend which now includes an all star night and 3 point shootout.

Thompson now resides in Finland where he continues to play and give back to the sport he loves ever so passionately.

Career Spotlight – Lloyd Samuels

Former Cayman Islands National Basketball player Lloyd Stevenson Samuels is now the Head Coach of the Dulwich Panthers AKA Drip Squad in Shanghai China.

Coaching in Shanghai:

In the 2018-2019 season, Samuels’ Varsity girls team placed 2nd in the ACAMIS tournament in Beijing.

In the 2019-2020 season, his Boys varsity team went undefeated throughout the season and were champions of the East Division. The team had a 3rd place finish in the SISAC tournament. Samuels and his Drip squad were going into the ACAMIS tournament as a favorite to win this year but the tournament was cancelled due to the Coronavirus.

Professional Basketball Overseas:

Samuels also played semi-professionally with the Teesvalley Mohawks English Basketball Club for 3 years. Mohawks head coach Steve Butler was quoted as saying, “Samuels struggled in his first season at the club as he came to terms with the new experience of playing basketball overseas but last term he earned the Most Improved Player award and played a big part in the squad’s push for a play-off place.”

Representing Cayman Internationally:

Samuels’ has represented the Cayman Islands at the Aland, Sweden NatWest Islands Games in 2009 and Rhodes, Greece in 2007 where Cayman won Silver; and the 2017 Bahamas CBC Games.

Local Basketball:

Samuels has played for three teams overall: most successfully the George Town Sports Club dynasty winning six titles consecutively; Wendy’s Tarheels and one title with the Shoalin Warriors in Cayman’s local men’s National league.