Spanish Town Spartans expect mature play from young team

Spanish Town Spartans will contest the Southern Basketball Conference (SBC) with a very inexperienced squad, mainly for developmental purposes, but coach Lennox Lindo is optimistic they can still have a good run in the competition.

Spartans face Aqua Youths in the opening game of the competition this evening at 5;30 p.m. before Real Lion take on Donmair Allstars in the second game at 7 p.m. The double-header at the Pembroke Hall courts will be preceded by an opening ceremony at 5 p.m.

Young Team

"This Spartan team will be mainly youths. You might not even see anybody from the present National Basketball League (NBL) team because we are trying to develop the youths to see if we can feed the bigger programme," Lindo said.

"We are focused on current high schoolers, like 19, 20 years old, that have potential and can improve the status of the club for future competitions," he added.

Although there are more experienced teams in the league, Lindo is not writing off his side and will wait to see how they manage in their first few games.

"The young players we have are more than capable. I coached most of them at high school and they are at that level in terms of age group. But you cannot rule us out. It's a young vibrant group that will score and if we can get it together, we might be challengers going down the road.

"I am not sure how much this Aqua team has in terms of substance but from past experience I expect us to do well against them," Lindo said.

The St Catherine team will look to players such as Daniel Jones, a guard and former national Under-16 player, Shevron Williams and Fabian Henry.