{"id":273739,"date":"2018-04-11T06:06:06","date_gmt":"2018-04-10T20:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=273739"},"modified":"2018-04-11T06:06:06","modified_gmt":"2018-04-10T20:06:06","slug":"basketball-team-final-roster-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/basketball-team-final-roster-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Basketball team final roster out"},"content":{"rendered":"
Douglas Schmidt, seen here driving against two players during a local league at the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium, is one of the 12 players named to the CNMI National Team that will compete in the 9th Micronesian Games in Yap. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many-time national coach Elias Rangamar yesterday released the 12-man roster for the CNMI men\u2019s national basketball team that will be competing in the 9th Micronesian Games in Yap.<\/p>\n

The squad will be led by Dan Barcinas, Preston Basa, Jack Lizama, and Douglas Schmidt Jr., who also represented the Commonwealth in last year\u2019s Pacific Mini Games in Vanuatu. Dean Blake, Coby Santos, Jeff Deleon Guerrero, Marvin Rabauliman, Aiferson Atan, Geno Libuw, N-Nes Siech, and Christian Mizer are the other members of the team. Mizer is the lone off-island player on the group, but is no stranger to the national squad, having played for the CNMI in the Micronesian Basketball Tournament several years ago.<\/p>\n

The 12 were part of the 17 that made the first cut after the two-day open tryout held last February at the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium.
\nCompleting the squad are Basa, John Santos, and Keith Nabors, who are part of Rangamar\u2019s coaching staff based on the latest report submitted by the Mariana Islands Basketball Federation to the Northern Marianas Sports Association.<\/p>\n

Rangamar, who will also be coaching the women\u2019s team in the Micro Games, said the final 12 was the result of close to two months and six-times a week practice sessions that involved court drills and strength and conditioning.<\/p>\n

He added that he likes the team\u2019s chances in the Micro Games, which will be held from July 15 to 27 at the Yap Sports Complex.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a deeper bench this time compared to the last Micro Games (Pohnpei). We just need to work and train harder to prepare for the Games,\u201d the CNMI coach said.<\/p>\n

Rangamar again advised players who missed the cut to practice more often to improve their skills and raise the level of their games.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a lot of young players that tried out and did not make the cut. We have a lot of good under 18 athletes this time and that is a good sign for the program,\u201d said Rangamar.<\/p>\n

He was also disappointed for Prince Factor, Kelvin Fitial, and Sean Rabasto for not making it to the national team as they often had to skip practice and training sessions due to the conflict with their work and school schedules.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t force them to skip work or their classes. It was really disappointing not to see them with the national team. They apologized to me for missing a number of practices and I understand them,\u201d said Rangamar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s their livelihood and their future so they need to prioritize that. I would really love to have them join us, especially Rabasto. That kid has a high basketball IQ and he knows when to shoot and when to pass the ball. Well, there\u2019s always the next Micro Games, they are still young,\u201d the CNMI Sports Hall of Famer added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many-time national coach Elias Rangamar yesterday released the 12-man roster for the CNMI men\u2019s national…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":273747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[26,845,20784,783],"class_list":["post-273739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-cnmi","tag-micro-games","tag-micronesian-basketball-tournament","tag-micronesian-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}