Basketball among young men in The Bahamas has become more and more competitive, and this could be due to the fact that there are more tournaments and camps available for the young athletes to take part in. As a result, the country is producing better basketball players than ever before.
The locally-based Providence Storm recently traveled to Orlando to compete in the ESPN 2014 Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Boys Basketball Easter Classic.
AAU is one of the largest non-profit volunteer sports organizations in the United States. A multi-sport organization, it is dedicated exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs, and the Easter Classic is one of its biggest events.
It is held at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at the Walt Disney World Resort, and plays host to more teams than any other tournament throughout the year. Almost all of the American-born National Basketball Association (NBA) players have come up through the system, and it is one of the best ways to get your name out to scouts and recruiters.
Providence Storm carried four teams to this year's easter classic. The four teams consisted of eighth to 12th grade students from both government and private schools here in New Providence; they performed well throughout the tournament, and played up to the high standard of the best young athletes in the United States. Three of the teams made it to the semi-final rounds of the tournament.
Local coaches Kevin Johnson of C.I. Gibson, Mark Hanna of D.W. Davis and Demycko Bowles of Doris Johnson constructed and coached the teams.
Coach Johnson's squad went up against Bowles' team in both the Government Secondary Schools Sports Association (GSSSA) Championship and the Hugh Campbell Basketball Championship, while Hanna's team lost in this year's GSSSA junior boys finals, for the first time in the past five years.
"I feel like our teams performed extremely well, especially the 12th grade team. If we made a couple of the lay-ups and free throws that we missed we would have won ourselves a championship. We only lost the game by three points, so it's just some small things we could have capitalized on," said coach Johnson.
For the past several years, both coaches Johnson and Hanna have carried teams all over the United States, giving local players chances to perform in front of recruiters from all over. Numerous scholarships have been awarded to Bahamian players from events like these; coach Bowles was one of the past recipients.
"Coach Bowles grew up in our system and he knows what we are all about, he's a great representative of the system and a good example of what we are trying to do. He was able to go to college and further his education through basketball, so he's a product of our system and what we are trying to do in the country," said Johnson.
By gathering the top talent on the island, placing them on one team, shows that local players have the potential to compete with the best the United States high schools have to offer, and if given the right opportunity, they can flourish at both the high school and collegiate level in the U.S.

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