MIAMI (United States) – Basketball Champions League Americas is back this weekend with the second stage games of Group A. The three teams maintain an even fight and will do everything possible to not let their guard down and head for the playoffs.

Cangrejeros (2-0), Edmonton Stingers (1-1) and the current runner-up, Real Esteli (0-2), will meet again at the Alexis Argüello Sports Center in the city of Managua, Nicaragua. Cangrejeros was supposed to serve as the hosting venue, but could not due to the COVID-19 health restrictions implemented in Puerto Rico.

This is how the games will be played:

Friday 4

20:00 (local time)

Cangrejeros v Esteli

Saturday 5

20:00 (local time)

Cangrejeros v Stingers

Sunday 6

20:00 (local time)

Esteli v Stingers

Esteli will try to recover after a winless initial stage. They urgently need to add a victory to try to get out of last place and stay in contention before the third and final group stage that will be played between the 14th and 16th of March in Calgary, Canada.

They will maintain most of the same squad of Puerto Rican players with Jezreel De Jesús, Javier Mojica, Alexander Franklin, Ysmael Romero and Renaldo Balkman. They will also add Dominican shooting guard Rigoberto Mendoza, who is a scorer of various dimensions. The challenge for Real Esteli will be on defense because in the first two games they allowed 87.5 points on average.

“We feel very good and confident. We already know the two opponents. The support of the fans is going to be very important”, Andy Pérez, who is back after injury, told the club's press team.

Cangrejeros will try to maintain their dominance and repeat what they did in the first games, set an explosive offense (90.0 points per game). Coach Larry Ayuso's troop counts with several scoring routes. Shooting guard Isaac Sosa was the leader with 20.0 points, while  Davon Jefferson added 17.5 and Chris Gaston  13.0.

“We have a lot of veterans who can do a lot of things, we know each other from the league and the national team. We have a solid team, I'm going to try to bring a lot of energy,” said power forward Gaston.

Point guards Angel Rodriguez, Filiberto Rivera, forward Emmy Andujar and Ramon Clemente contribute a lot with that experience. 

The Canadian champion, Edmonton Stingers, will present a renewed squad. Only four players who were present in the first stage return with the team. They are center Chad Posthumus who averaged 11.5 rebounds (second best in the league), forward Murphy Burnatowski and guards Junior Cadougan and Jahmal Jones.

Among the new additions are Alex Campbell, Malcolm Duvivier, Jaylen Babb-Harrison, Jean-Victor Mukama and D'Andre Bernard, all of whom performed outstandingly in the CEBL, the main Canadian league. They will be accompanied by American reinforcements Josh Selby, who had a brief stint in the NBA with the Memphis Grizzlies and Zach Rollins.

FIBA