BARRANQUILLA (Colombia) - The team led by Tomás Díaz started getting ready on January 18th, with the reinforcements that joined the roster which won Colombia's Professional Basketball League's title.

"Winning the championship for the third time gave us a lot of satisfaction because we managed to do something historic, and we've been doing things properly. We want to improve and be competitive every year. The Colombian league is growing a lot and that's because of the work we're doing from the inside out. It's a process that will have more and more young players with projection, looking for the opportunity to play for the national team. This is the beginning of something great, we believe a stronger league will mostly benefit the national team," stated the Titanes' coach, Tomás Díaz.

Titanes had its first international participation in the 2019 League of the Americas. It participated after becoming the local league's champion. In that experience, it went up against Paulistano, Malvín, and Atenas in the group phase.

For the BCL Americas, Titanes was able to keep many players from the champion team, with Gianluca Bacci, Jesús Medina, Eduardo Torres, Héctor Díaz, Yildon Mendoza, Orlando Palma, and the Argentine Selem Safar. They were joined by Dominican players Adris De León, former Búcaros de Bucaramanga, and Antonio Peña, a power forward that came to replace Tonny Trocha; the Colombian Juan Diego Tello, the pivot Justin Williams and Puerto Rican Jonathan Rodríguez, who signed a contract until 2023 with the club.

"We have the best expectations for the BCL Americas. We were able to keep the team that won the league, we'll only have two or three changes. One of the goals is to make it to the Final Four. We want to make history, we want Titanes and all of Colombia to be present in the international tournament's finals. It won't be easy because we know it's the most relevant Latin-American basketball event, but we'll try to rise to the challenge," claimed Díaz.

From February 3 to 5, in Managua (Nicaragua), Titanes will face a tough challenge in Group A against Real Estelí and Caballos de Coclé. They're very optimistic with their goal to make history outside of Colombia.

FIBA