Basketball is more alive than ever in Nicaragua

MANAGUA (Nicaragua) – The U14 Women's National team is getting ready to face a new Central American Basketball Confederation (COCABA) championship; which is why a league began in September in the city of Managua to help warm-up the shortlist that will play in the Central American tournament.

From November 4 to 10 Managua will welcome the U14 COCABA for both sexes, featuring Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico and hosts, Nicaragua.

The tournament is organized by the Nicaraguan Basketball Federation (FENIBAL, for its Spanish acronym) and the Municipality of Managua and will be held in the Alexis Argüello Sports Complex.

Basketball's following is quite strong in Nicaragua. Eighty percent of the sport is played on outdoor courts, but in recent years municipal governments have invested to put up roofs for the courts. Although the reigning sport is baseball, basketball has been one of the sports that has grown the most in the nation.

Because of this, Nicaragua is preparing to define the athletes that will be part of both national teams, said the organizers to FIBA.basketball.

The technical staff of the U14 men's shortlist, led by Omar Centeno, and Hilton Lockwood and Jader Vato on his side, also seek to improve the valuable fifth position achieved in April 2018 in El Salvador.

To prepare the women's team, a basketball tournament began on Sunday, with the objective of turning it into a friendly competition, but also to use it later as a parameter to define the national team.

“Fifteen players comprise the shortlist from the Autonomous Region of Costa Caribe, as well as from the Jinotega and Managua departments. The plan is that they participate, that they play friendlies so that we can define the 12 players that will represent the country in the Central American event,” stated Jelmun Estrada, Head Coach of the national U14 women's team.

“As for these girls, we’ll make an additional effort. In this first call, we invited public and private schools from Managua. We're all involved in making the national team look better. This is quite a complete process of more than three months searching for girls throughout the entire country,” Estrada added.

The tournament will have just one round, will last two months, and will only take place on Sundays at the Alexis Argüello Sports Complex. Aside from the U14 team in the Female Basketball Tournament, other teams will participate, such as Eagles, Tipitapa, Jass, Costa Caribe and Leonas.

In April of this year, FENIBAL and the capital city made the first call to try out to build the U14 shortlist for both sexes at the Luis Alfonso Velásquez Flores Park – the epicenter of youth basketball in the city of Managua.

Thirty boys and seven girls answered to the call, so a search ensued in other areas of the Central American nation for mainly female talents, but also for boys.

To continue strengthening the development of the Nicaraguan youth national teams, in September the team Real Estelí, of the Superior Basketball League (LSB) of the Nicaraguan capital, and the regional government of Costa Caribe, sponsored the Basketball Fundamentals Workshop in the municipality of Bluefields.

The event was led by Puerto Rican coach David Rosario, who coaches Real Estelí at the LSB. Children from the municipalities of Bluefields and Laguna de Perlas who will be part of the U14 national basketball team attended the event.

“The mission and goal of this workshop are to develop basketball and to allow children and coaches to learn the basic fundamentals of the game,” the organizers assured.

“We saw a lot of talent, a lot of experienced and raw talent. There's a different biotype here. There are professors that grant us their time to train (participants), such as Carlos Parson. But we need more coaches because there's a great population. We need to see how that group of athletes there can come to Managua and do it successfully. I think they need help in that sense. We had to find the way of avoiding the loss of that pool, because there's talent there – tall, with long limbs, athletic, quick, with (high) jumps… Just lacking the fundamentals refinement and the control over the technical-tactical area. I've seen great physiques there, both in the female and male categories. There’s a bright future,” pointed out the Puerto Rican coach.

Nicaraguan basketball is a sport that's not only practiced, but also has a lot of fans, just like baseball, boxing and soccer. Basketball grows more and more and is more alive than ever in Nicaragua.

FIBA