ST. THOMAS — Ronnie Richards was looking forward to having the U.S. Virgin Islands senior men’s national basketball team finally play a game on home soil that meant something.
Instead, after hurricanes Irma and Maria, that plan has been put on hold, at least temporarily.
Officials confirmed Friday that the V.I. National Team’s first-round qualifying game for the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 next month has been shifted to an away game, and more games may be affected.
“Unfortunately, we went through those Category 5 hurricanes,” Richards, president of the USVI Basketball Federation, said in a telephone interview. “All the facilities and the hotels were totaled in this disaster. So we’ve had to move those games to away games.
“It’s disappointing, but God knows best. It’s something we didn’t have control over, so we can’t really question it. We’ve just got to decide what’s next and move on.”
The V.I.-Dominican Republic game was to have been played Nov. 24 at St. Croix’s Central High School gymnasium. But Richards said that the facility, which was undergoing work to bring it up to FIBA standards, was damaged during Hurricane Maria.
“We originally thought about playing the game on St. Croix because Paradise Jam had booked the UVI facility around the same time,” said Richards, referring to the annual men’s and women’s college basketball tournament held at the UVI Sports and Fitness Center on St. Thomas.
“We had been working hard to get Central up to date and up to par to host the game … but it’s terrible. A portion of the roof came off, so you can imagine what happened.”
According to Usie Richards, president of FIBA Americas, the destruction caused by the hurricanes in both the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico forced basketball federation officials in both places to ask FIBA officials to make the scheduling change, at least for the first group-play games.
“Given those concerns, with the lack of communications, the ground transportation and hotel conditions, the federation also requested that we allow them to play that game away, then switch it back at a later date,” Richards said.
“We are focusing on making sure that we get all our games played in the November window. After that, we’ll continue our assessment, particularly in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, about their ability to host games during the February window.”
Under FIBA’s new World Cup qualifying format, each of the group teams play six games during three “windows” over eight months, beginning in late November. The other game windows are in February 2018 and June 2018.
During each window, the teams would play one game on their home court, and one away. Over the six qualifying games, that would give each team three home games and three road games.
From the first-round qualifying games, the top seven teams advance to the second round, of which each team would be guaranteed two more home games.
The Virgin Islands was paired with the Bahamas, Canada and the Dominican Republic in Group D of the 16-team Americas qualifier. Puerto Rico was paired with defending World Cup champion and world No. 1 United States, Cuba and Mexico in Group C.
With the schedule change, both the V.I. and Puerto Rico national teams have back-to-back road games during the first qualifying game window.
The Virgin Islands will, instead of hosting the Dominican Republic on Nov. 24, play its qualifying game in Santiago, Dominican Republic. The V.I.-D.R. rematch is Feb. 25, although Ronnie Richards said the site for the game was still to be determined.
The Virgin Islands remaining games are against the Bahamas on Nov. 27 (away) and June 29 (home), and Canada on Feb. 22 (home) and July 2 (away).
Meanwhile, Puerto Rico was scheduled to host Team U.S.A. in its opening game on Nov. 23 in San Juan; that game will now be played on the U.S. mainland at a site to be determined.
The Puerto Rico-United States rematch will now be played Feb. 26 in Puerto Rico, but the site had not been determined.
Puerto Rico’s remaining games are against Cuba on Nov. 26 (away) and June 28 (home), and against Mexico on Feb. 23 (away) and July 1 (home).
USVI senior teams move up in rankings
The success of the Virgin Islands’ senior men’s and senior women’s national teams over the summer led to a big jump for both teams in FIBA’s world rankings, which were updated earlier this month.
The USVI men’s team climbed to No. 51 in the rankings, up eight spots — the biggest upward move by an Americas zone team, and 13th most among the 149 teams in the rankings.
Meanwhile, the Virgin Islands women had an even bigger move, from No. 50 to a tie for 35th with Colombia.
The V.I.’s 15-spot climb was the most among the 79 teams in the FIBA world rankings.
The upward moves came from the V.I.’s men finishing fourth in the 2017 FIBA AmeriCup tournament in Argentina, while the V.I. women won the FIBA CentroBasket Women’s 2017 tournament and finished fifth at the 2017 FIBA Women’s AmeriCup tournament.
— Contact Sports Editor Bill Kiser at 340-714-9117, or email
bkiser@dailynews.vi.
