By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas women’s national basketball team, fresh off their bronze medal performance at the FIBA Caribbean Women’s Cup Championships, is now in Puerto Rico where they hope to at least duplicate or surpass that performance at the Centro Basket Tournament.

By virtue of winning the bronze at the Anthony Nesty Sporthal in Paramaribo, Suriname, in June, The Bahamas clinched their berth in the Centro Basket this week.

The team, coached by Waye Watson and assisted by Varel Clarke-Davis and Anton Francis, got in a set of practices yesterday and will begin their round robin play today at 6.30pm against Puerto Rico. On Tuesday at 2.30pm, The Bahamas will play Mexico in their second game. Their final game in the round robin will be on Wednesday against Costa Rica.

“Everyone seemed to be in good spirits,” Watson said from Puerto Rico. “We’re a little bit stronger than the team we took to Suriname about six weeks ago. But we’re lacking one of country’s premier point guards in Valerie Nesbitt and we are also lacking Waltiea Rolle. She never showed up. She could have been a big asset to us. but we are in good spirits and we have a pretty good team and we will do our best with what we have.”

Nesbitt, the starting point guard for the Caribbean Women’s Cup, has signed to play for women’s head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin, who has taken on the head coaching job at Ole Miss University. Meanwhile, Rolle, one of two Bahamian female professional players, didn’t make the trip to Suriname and Watson was hoping that she would have been available for this trip. Jonquel Jones, the other pro, is still playing with the Connecticut Sun in the Women’s National Basketball Association.

Without these players, the team, managed by Lavardis Johnson, will comprise of Joette Fernander, Tracy Lewis, Ashley Moss, Shaniqua Thompson, Arlia Greene, Kendi Outten, Brea Forbes, Felicia Demerite, Sha-Londa Neely, Marvia Dean, Britenique Harrison and Leashja Grant.

“We will rely heavily on our defence and hopefully our system will be able to pull us through,” Watson projected. “We’re going to play point guard by committee as much as possible and hopefully our bigs, which are much better than we had in Suriname, will pull us through.

“With the addition of Leashja Grant and Mavia Dean, will be a lot more stronger, even though we still have Britinique Harris and Sha-londa Neely, Ashley Moss and Tracy Lewis. So we should not have a problem with our bigs. We have two or three guards who came in for the first time at the senior level, so that will be a challenge for us. But we hope to use our speed to compensate for that.”

Caption: Pictured from left to right in the front row are team manager Lavardis Johnson, Joette Fernander, Tracy Lewis, Ashley Moss, Shaniqua Thompson, Arlia Greene, Kendi Outten, Brea Forbes, Felicia Demerite, assistant coach Varel Clarke-Davis and assistant coach Anton Francis. Back row from left are Sha-Londa Neely, Marvia Dean, Britenique Harrison, Leashja Grant and head coach Wade Watson. Photo: John Nutt.