Team Guam hoops eyes gold in Palau

Guam - With nothing but gold on their mind, Team Guam is preparing for the upcoming Micronesian Games in Palau. The women's national team didn't compete in the last games in 2006 in Saipan, but will be ready this time around. The women's team will be stacked with veterans as well as up and coming ballers from the high school level.

Head coach Joe Taitano told KUAM Sports, "The talent pool that we are choosing from is quite excellent. We have girls that made the all-star team, the all-island team and we have some veteran basketball players that are extremely skillful. And then we have most of the girls that made the all-star team in Far East tryouts. So we have a good pool of girls that are showing up and we are looking at taking 12 girls to the Micronesian Games and 12 to the under 19 in New Caledonia in October."

Team Guam finished with a bronze medal in '02 in Pohnpei, where most of the players on the squad were from the high school level. Coach Taitano is confident that the team that will represent Guam this year in Palau will place in the top two. "This time around with the combination of with some of the adult players we have and young players we have," he projected, "I'm looking forward to bringing the gold home to Guam this Micronesian Games."

On the men's side, our national team will look to defend their gold medal after a dominant performance in the last games. Team Guam went to work in Saipan and went through the games with an undefeated record, facing Palau in the gold medal game. With Palau now having home court advantage at this year's Micro Games, our men's team will have to step it up and better their 76-72 win against Palau four years ago.

Men's head coach Sid Guzman said, "Guys that are participating in the tryouts that have played or represented Guam in the past are players like Jin-Ho Han, John Chaco, Andrew Borja and Vince Estella. These are some of the notable players. We have a few that are off-island as well that are interested and we had a couple of players that came from off-island just for the tryouts itself. We have a good group, a good mix that have also played in the past in under-19 tournaments and are now 24, 25 years old and have come back to try and play and represent the island."

Our national basketball team program is one of the best in Micronesia. Our coaches have been off-island for seminars and training and our players have a lot of off-island experience. When you take knowledge and skill of the game you get players who can compete with the best around.

Guzman added, "Guam has set a standard of excellence in basketball and you know there's nothing less of gold that would be sufficient for anybody's expectations, so we are competing as best we can and should we do what it takes, I have no doubts that we should be gold medalists."

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