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The Belize Basketball Federation held a press conference this morning at the Rogers Stadium to unveil the selection - and we were there:

Bernie Tarr - Techinical Officer, Basketball
"The AU tournament, held at the end of April, and it's the top players in the United States and parts of Canada that play in this. Last year, there were 99 teams. The whole goal for this is to get one or several of our players a college scholarship. That's the reason that kinds in the States play AU; it's to get a college scholarship. All the college scouts will be at this tournament, and this is the Mecca of college basketball. All the kids play AU basketball. What we did was we went through all the districts and held district tryouts. From the district tryouts, 48 players were invited to Belmopan last weekend, where they spent the night. We worked out on Saturday and Sunday - about 11 hours of basketball in 2 days. From that list, we narrowed it down to 21 players that we brought to Belize City yesterday. They had their final tryout, and we had the tough task of making that final selection down to 15."

Monica Bodden
"Is it Belize's first time taking part in the tournament?"

Bernie Tarr
"Of course, yes, it is the first time. I think this is the first time that any team other than a team from Canada that's going to be out of the United States. I talked to Dru Joyce, who was Lebron's high school coach, who runs the tournament, and he is really excited we're coming out for this tournament. He said that they are going to role out the red carpet for us."

Akeem Watters - Player
"I didn't know what to do. I was like, yes. I was jumping up and down. I'm getting an opportunity to meet my idol, Lebron James. So I was excited."

Monica Bodden
"How much work did you have to put in to actually come out successful in this tournament?"

Akeem Watters
"Me, I'm the type of player that thinks if I'm sitting down, there's someone out there working harder than me. So I work out every day. I don't rest. I work hard every day on my shooting, passing and the physical stuff."

Kachief Thomas - Player
"This was always my dream to go somewhere far to play ball. That's everybody's dream. This is just tryouts. Now this is the real thing. We have to go through the plays, hardworking, go to the gym - because you have to have body. It's height that we'll meet, so it'll be hard."

Akeem Watters
"I will give it my best. I will push everything I have, and hopefully, I get a scholarship to represent."

Bernie Tarr
"So what our players are going do is that we're going to face the best players in the United States. I think our guys are up for the challenge. The level of basketball at the tryouts - they really raised level from where we were at. The play yesterday was phenomenal, so we still have a lot of work to do. But in terms going there and winning the tournament, again, our number one goal is to get one kid a chance at a scholarship, and then two, three, and four. Because right now there is nobody here that when to high school here in Belize that is playing college basketball."

And despite the pre-election scenery - and they still have to hustle sponsorship which will be close to fifty thousand dollars.