By Steve Smith.

After a highly successful Basketball competition that not only drew the largest crowds of the Games but attracted close to 50,000 Web Page Requests during the Games itself, the development initiatives of the Games of FIBA Oceania would appear to be reaping significant results. Overall, we can summarise as follows:

Competition:

A highly successful basketball competition was conducted thanks to the co-operation of the eight participating men's teams and seven women's teams. The Palau Basketball Federation and the people of Palau did an outstanding job of servicing the administrative needs of the competition. Competition Manager Myers Techitong from Palau worked closely with FIBA representative Steve Smith to ensure the smooth running of the competition. We were fortunate that our competition was not interrupted by the non-arrival of entered teams. Additionally our competition schedule was not affected by the weather.

Support Services:

The gym was always full of willing volunteers ensuring facility management, game scoring, statistics gathering, tournament administration and website maintenance were well looked after.

FIBA Oceania provided four staff members to supervise separate aspect of the competition;

Steve Smith FIBA Representative

Stuart Manwaring Referee Supervision/Education/Evaluation

Jon Hoyle Scorebench & Statistics Supervision

Regan Kama Administration supervision.



In each case, SPMG LOC provided an extremely competent and dedicated local counterpart who looked after each aspect of running the tournament and in all areas, event support was provided by local people. This is sure to create a significant post-games legacy.

The LOC ensured that new basketball backstops and shot clocks had been acquired for the tournament and the gym had been extensively renovated for the event. One technical problem, a breakdown in the shot clocks on the third day of competition, was quickly resolved with only minor disruption to the event schedule.

Successes:

The basketball competition contributed significantly to the success of the Mini Games with the standard of competition, the number of spectators and the website traffic all testament to the progress being made with the development of basketball across the region. This event was a great showcase for our sport.

Clear improvements could be seen in the standard of play and the quality of coaching of teams. Of particular note was the improvement in the performances of Palau, PNG and the Solomons in both the men's and women's competition. Guam, who previously were the dominant basketball nation in the region were challenged by other Micronesian nations and the Solomon Islands scored a history making victory over Guam in the preliminary rounds of the men's competition.

Officiating: It was pleasing that so many teams sent an accompanying referee who officiated at the competition and benefited from the increased competition and supervision/education provided by FIBA Oceania. The participating teams who did not comply, made the conduct of the competition more difficult and FIBA Oceania will ask in future that offending teams in future suffer a financial penalty for such behaviour.

Appreciation: A big vote of thanks is due to the Palau Basketball Federation and especially to its National Basketball Development Officer Topps Sungino in the background work, which ensured a successful tournament.

Steve Smith
FIBA Representative


7th South Pacific Mini Games

Basketball Tournament

Women's Final Standings

1st Fiji Gold

2nd Papua New Guinea Silver

3rd New Caledonia Bronze

4th Solomon Islands

5th Palau

6th Guam

7th Federated States of Micronesia



Men's Final Standings

1st New Caledonia Gold

2nd Guam Silver

3rd Fiji Bronze

4th Papua New Guinea

5th Palau

6th Solomon Islands

7th Federated States of Micronesia

8th Republic of Marshall Islands