I noticed in the other thread some of the regulars on the bball thread brought up the topic of west indians, specifically trinis playing in the NCAA tournament.
I remember growing up in Toronto and playing with the older guys and they had several scholarship offers from all over the US, the majority was Division 1 schools. I'm talking about 99% of the players I grew up playing with were west indian, the vast majority being from TT and Jamaica.
It is no secret that the dynamic in Toronto and Montreal is different than in the US, the majority of minority players are West Indian, which is the opposite in the US because of the sheer numbers of african americans in US basketball.
The funny thing about this is, our national basketball team in TT can be an olympic team that is strong and can contend with the rest of the world, however, the current locals who run TT basketball are not scouting players from Canada and the US.
If they were scouting, I would have seen TT at the olympics since I entered or even before I entered high school, a very long time ago.
We have coaches throughout North America who are west indian and we are littered with talented TT players throughout north america and still we have failed to make a mark in olympic basketball. It's pitiful, you have all this talent that is eligible to play for TT and the local basketball organization are wasting our chances, just like our football.
For example, I had friends who were offered partial and full scholarships to D1 schools. Yet I have seen none of them ever been scouted to a national team, its a joke.
For example, every year Toronto produces ball talent that is either Trini, Jamaican or of west indian background and none of them are ever called to play national basketball. I am talking about every year, we have ballers go to D1 schools in the US because they are good enough to start or even make the NBA, yet none are recruited for the national team in TT.
If I was the head of ball back home, I would see who is the best ballers locally and then combine them with the best in north america. You have a guy like Kareem abdul jabar that has done clinics in TT but no one has ever asked him to be a coach or put together a team of coaches to build TT basketball.
Like I said, its ridiculous that we have so much talent produced every year in Canada and the US and none of them are called back to play for the TT national basketball team because they are a joke federation with no vision.