BUENOS AIRES — The Argentine Basketball Confederation announced the creation of La Academia CABB after a long period of planning. This is a new youth development experience that will begin in the High-Performance Center (CeNARD, for its Spanish acronym) in the city of Buenos Aires, on January 29 and will last a month, concluding on February 28. 28 players between the ages of 13 and 19 (14 male and 14 female) will participate.

The project's objective is the individual development of participating players above any collective training. Therefore, the basis of these training sessions will be supported in the fundamental steps that have been promoted for the formative categories for quite some years now. The young players will be carefully observed and evaluated by seven coaches and guests of both branches of different areas. The session days will be divided in two three-hour shifts in which participants will go through all types of physical, technical and tactical trials, and a plethora of extracurricular activities, such as English classes, talks, museum visits, documentaries and games.

“The establishment of La Academia is in line with our sports planning and the implementation of the CABB Method Manual. What improves players is training, and this intense and multidisciplinary approach, without a doubt will bring participants a great opportunity to progress. Like any model implemented by CABB, it is free of charge and we hope that in the future we may replicate it in several places throughout our country,” said CABB President, Federico Susbielles.

The work program developed by La Academia’s Director, Juan Gatti, in collaboration with Herán Amaya, follows the CABB Method fostered by Silvio Santander.

The syllabus consists of five stages: evaluation (throwing and offensive fundamentals), physical work (motricity and specific force), technical work (drills), tactical work (development of the game through specific concepts) and academic workshops (language and general culture). Training will be divided by positions and not by genders, the activities will be mixed.

“La Academia was a CABB idea in order to keep improving the development of our young players. It's part of the CABB Method that has been implemented over the last two years, which also includes coach training, player recruitment, the CABB Method Manual, and others,” stated Juan Gatti in declarations to FIBA. He also assured: “The expectation for this first edition is to collaborate with this 28-player group in their development as athletes and people, not only through training that's exclusively-oriented toward their individual improvement, but also through academic activities that enable their whole development.”

“This is the first time this happens in Argentina. We have a group of first-level coaches and professors that will carry out more than 200 hours of programmed activities during this month,” he added and stated that “each member of La Academia will take home a detailed written and video report with each aspect of their evolution.”

Coach and National Training Director, Silvio Santander, also talked about this: “It allows us to train the youth with the whole multidisciplinary CABB staff and have it at the boys’ and girls’ disposition. I believe it’s a great tool to develop young talent in our country. It represents the concrete possibility of developing individual strengths and not think about building teams.”

Next January 29, the Confederation's dream will jump start with the presence of President Federico Susbielles; the institution's Sports Director, Sebastián Uranga; and the Director of Development of Women's Basketball, Karina Rodríguez.

FIBA