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| NPBA tips off early |
Kelsie Johnson
Guardian Sports Reporter kelsie@nasguard.com
Published: Sep 15, 2012
With more teams expressing interest in joining the local basketball league, the executives in the New Providence Basketball Association (NPBA) will now have to get the season started early in order to host the required number of games to complete the regular season. Play for the 2012/2013 season will tip-off on October 6 at the C.I. Gibson gymnasium. Once again teams will play out of two divisions, the John Archer and Vince Ferguson. Executives are encouraging teams to confirm their participation since the league will start in less than three weeks. “We found ourselves in the past not being able to finish the required number of games effectively in the regular season so we decided to start early this time around and hopefully we will get all the games in,” said President Keith ‘Belsey’ Smith. “We expect the same number of teams, 12, in two divisions, the John Archer and the Vince Ferguson. That is a lot of teams to regulate over a five and a half month period. “Applications for entrance were made from about three other organizations. We feel that we may allow one or two of them. But responses have been coming in from all of the returning teams. There are a couple of them who have already confirmed their return and we are just waiting on others to do so but we are moving along. We want to keep the interest in joining the league as fresh as possible. Right now we are looking at adding one or two teams into the mix. They are in constant contact with us and we know they seem to be quite excited and enthused about joining the NPBA.” Even though there are a number of teams wanting to add their names into the hunt for the championship title, Smith said the whole idea is to ensure that the league is ran proficiently and it is manageable. Smith said: “With all the breaks that we have been experiencing over the years for whatever reasons we found it difficult to make to many adjustments to the league. To make sure that it finishes on time and that enough games are played we started early. That used to be a problem in the past, teams felt that they didn’t play sufficient games sometimes or for some reasons or the other, games had to be rescheduled. When we started late we ended up so close to the culmination of the season and teams didn’t have enough time to prepare for Commonwealth Championships. Some games had to be postponed or canceled as a result of this. So we felt that an early start would eliminate some of these problems. The teams will get in a good number of games before the Christmas break or any other break we have had and experienced in the past.” The Commonwealth Bank Giants will put their title on the line again this season. Teams like Real Deal Shockers and Mailboat Cybots will hope to dethrone them. |
