You might have heard of the Alaskan, Hawaiian, and even the Puerto Rican shootout. This year you can add Belize to that list. Beginning Monday the University of Belize's Black Jaguar Basketball Team will be hosting Belize's first shootout with the West Minister College and Quintana Roo basketball teams. What is a shootout? Well the short answer is that it is a mini basketball tournament. UB's Public Relations Officer Paco Smith and Black Jaguar Coach Kevin Seroki explained how it will work.
Paco Smith, PR Officer - U.B.
"This is an opportunity for the University to allow its student athletes the chance to compete at the highest levels possible. It's a great opportunity for our young student athletes to showcase their talents against international competition. Beginning through Monday to Thursday of next week we will have the shootout between UB's all-student squad, the University of West Minister, Pennsylvania in the U.S., and the University of Quintana Roo."
Kevin Seroki, UB's Coach
"We have three teams and we are all going to play, it's going to be like a round robin and then the two teams with the best record will play on Thursday for first and second place and it's the same kind of shootouts like they have in the States; the Alaskan Shootout, the Hawaiian Shootout. And this is the first year for it so it's only going to get better from here and the University of Belize is doing a great thing by bringing in other countries and other people to play so its going to be a lot of fun."
Larry Ondako, West Minister's Coach
"We play pretty exciting ball. It's going to be high scoring. We play fast paced basketball and we shoot a lot of 3s. It is pretty exciting, it's pretty entertaining. We've actually gained a lot of notoriety in our division throughout the United States with the way we play and the success we've had in the past three or four years so if they can come out and watch it they'll be entertained."
That was Larry Ondako who is the coach of the West Minister male basketball team. The first game is Monday afternoon at the City Center. Entrance is $3 for students with id and $5 for general admission.
