SOLOMON ISLANDS – The Solomon Islands men’s national team has been diligently preparing for the upcoming FIBA Melanesia Basketball Cup 2017. Over the past week, they had their first chance to test themselves against a touring Papua New Guinea Men’s Basketball League (PMBL) team the KSS Flames.

The Solomon Islands Men’s team and the KSS Flames played a 3-game exhibition series at the Honiara Multipurpose Hall. The KSS Flames took out all three games, taking out the final match with a 78-69 performance over the home side.

Despite the result, Solomon Island’s Head Coach, Brendan Beak was optimistic and thankful for his teams learning opportunity.

“As this was the first time for the majority of the Solomon Island squad players to compete against high-level competition, and international level players, I thought it was an excellent learning experience for the team,” Coach Beak told FIBA.basketball.

“The local competition level in the Solomon's has a lot of areas for improvement, and the Solomon's players aren't often exposed to that high of a level of both individual skills and team competitiveness. It was excellent for us to learn, and understand the concentration and focus that is required to compete at that level.”

This series was also an opportunity for the Solomon Islands to go head-to-head with some of the Papua New Guinea national team players. The KSS Flames boasts a number of players from PNG’s Melanesia Basketball Cup roster including Charles Parapa plus the Muri brothers, Apia and Purari.

Coach Beak is confident that his team will be ready to leave it all on the floor in Port Moresby.

“We have been training extremely hard to not only build our players individual skills and fitness but to also implement the core team principles, both on offense and defense,” said Beak.

“I am confident that the team will compete hard to represent the Solomon Islands to the best of their ability, and I think that our performance against the flames demonstrated that we are poised to compete at a high level.”

FIBA